The Lost City of Z - David Grann

⭐ 9.5/10

(Originally written by Joseph)

Alright lemme tell ya, Grann is the mann. I've now read two books of his recently, plus just watched Flowers of the Killer Moon, and have loved everything. He has the very unique ability as a nonfiction writer to pick amazing historical stories that are all mostly unrelated and tell them in interesting, relevant ways. He's got to be my favorite non-fic storyteller right now and I'll buy all his books forever.

So this one is mostly about Percival Fawcett and his obsession with finding a mythical city in the middle of the Amazon Rainforest. I didn't know anything about the Amazon going in, so it was truly interesting learning about this perilous stretch of forest that covers half of South America. Like, even today it holds countless mysteries because it is so dense and so dangerous. Lots of indigenous tribes still live there, cut off from modern civilization outside, and we are only now scratching the surface of its history.

Unlike the Wager, this is a little less of a linear narrative, with really only every other chapter being about Fawcett. The others are about other explorers, or even the author's own trek, trying to retrace Fawcett's steps.

It's also cool to think about what we don't know. Fawcett eventually disappeared into the forest (not a spoiler, it's in the introduction) so we don't really know what happened to him. There are lots of fun theories and conspiracies that the author gets into. Fawcett was a deeply flawed person, kinda going insane after so many years in the forest trying to find Z, completely disregarding his wife and kids in the process, but he was also heroic, progressive, and possibly the toughest person who ever lived. He's definitely an intriguing person which makes it so compelling to keep reading.

So yeah, I loved this book. I totally recommend it, though I will say I slightly preferred The Wager for it's linearity and tidy resolution (though thinking about it now, the ambiguous ending of this one is half the fun). It totally changed the way I think of adventure and exploration, and similar to The Wager, made me want to set out myself despite these books being very clear that adventuring is the worst and most people die. Like, you have never heard of more disgusting forms of torture than how people died in this forest. And yet... who's with me?!