Synopsis
In 1925, legendary explorer Percy Fawcett ventured into uncharted realms of the Amazon jungle in order to discover "The Lost City of Z," an ancient civilization that he believed could have been the basis for the mythical El Dorado. Fawcett and his party disappeared, never to be heard from again. Eighty years later, David Grann, an ordinary reporter for The New Yorker, uncovered Fawcett's diaries and found himself compelled to follow in the footsteps of the intrepid adventurer. While this may sound like the premise of an old serial novel or the next Indiana Jones sequel, all of these events are true, as told in Grann's confessional chronicle, which documents his swelling obsession to conquer the Amazon wilderness and solve this centuries-old mystery. Once in the jungle, he encounters the expected antagonistic natives and hostile beasts of prey, but what he uncovers about Fawcett and his mystical "City of Z" makes for an amazing conclusion to his quest.
| Details | | Publication Date: | 2009-02-24 | | Narrated by: | Mark Deakins | | Edition Description: | Unabridged |
| Size | | Height: | 6.3 in | | Width: | 5.3 in | | Thickness: | 1.2 in | | Weight: | 8.8 oz |
Publisher's Note
Interweaves the story of British explorer Percy Fawcett, who vanished during a 1925 expedition into the Amazon to find an ancient civilization, with the author's own adventure-filled quest into the uncharted wilderness to uncover the mysteries surrounding Fawcett's final journey and the secrets of what really lies deep in the Amazon jungle. Simultaneous.
Industry Reviews
"...Grann provides an in-depth, captivating character study that has the relentless energy of a classic adventure tale."
(10/13/2008)
"Grann has an extraordinary sense of pacing, and his scenes of forest adventure are dispatched in passages of swift, arresting simplicity."
"The reader is taken just as close to Grann as the author is to Fawcett - tantalizingly close but never touching. His findings give us as complete a picture of the city of Z as we're likely to get, even if Fawcett forever remains brilliantly and maddeningly nowhere to be seen."
(02/22/2009)
"What makes Mr. Grann's telling of the story so captivating is that he decides not simply to go off in search of yet more relics of our absent hero -- but to go off himself in search of the city that Fawcett was looking for so heroically when he suddenly went AWOL."
(02/27/2009)
"[THE LOST CITY OF Z] is a powerful narrative, stiff lipped and Victorian at the edges, as if one of those stern men of Conrad had found himself trapped in a novel by Garcia Marquez."
(03/01/2009)
"THE LOST CITY OF Z...recounts Fawcett's expeditions with all the pace of a white-knuckle adventure story. The book is a model of suspense and concision....Although [the] story cuts through 100 years of complicated history, Grann follows its twists and turns admirably. Thoroughly researched, vividly told, this is a thrill ride from start to finish."
(03/08/2009)
"As writer David Grann makes abundantly clear in this fascinating, epic story of exploration and obsession, the lethal attraction of the Amazon mystery remains strong...[He] brilliantly re-creates Fawcett's perilous Amazon expeditions, especially what is known of his ill-fated 1925 journey."
(03/11/2009)
"THE LOST CITY OF Z is at once a biography, a detective story and a wonderfully vivid piece of travel writing....[It] reads with all the pace and excitement of a movie thriller and all the verisimilitude and detail of firsthand reportage, and it seems almost surely destined for a secure perch on the best-seller lists."
(03/16/2009)
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