The Lost City of Z

A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon

By: David Grann

Narrated by: Mark Deakins

Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins

Publisher's summary

A grand mystery reaching back centuries. A sensational disappearance that made headlines around the world. A quest for truth that leads to death, madness or disappearance for those who seek to solve it. The Lost City of Z is a blockbuster adventure narrative about what lies beneath the impenetrable jungle canopy of the Amazon.

After stumbling upon a hidden trove of diaries, acclaimed New Yorker writer David Grann set out to solve "the greatest exploration mystery of the 20th century": What happened to the British explorer Percy Fawcett and his quest for the Lost City of Z?

In 1925 Fawcett ventured into the Amazon to find an ancient civilization, hoping to make one of the most important discoveries in history.

For centuries Europeans believed the world's largest jungle concealed the glittering kingdom of El Dorado. Thousands had died looking for it, leaving many scientists convinced that the Amazon was truly inimical to humankind. But Fawcett, whose daring expeditions helped inspire Conan Doyle's The Lost World, had spent years building his scientific case. Captivating the imagination of millions, Fawcett embarked with his 21-year-old son, determined to prove that this ancient civilization, which he dubbed "Z", existed. Then he and his expedition vanished.

Fawcett's fate, and the tantalizing clues he left behind about "Z", became an obsession for hundreds who followed him into the uncharted wilderness. For decades scientists and adventurers have searched for evidence of Fawcett's party and the lost City of Z. As David Grann delved ever deeper into the mystery surrounding Fawcett's quest, and the greater mystery of what lies within the Amazon, he found himself, like the generations who preceded him, being irresistibly drawn into the jungle's "green hell". His quest for the truth and his stunning discoveries about Fawcett's fate and "Z" form the heart of this complex, enthralling narrative.

©2009 David Grann (P)2009 Random House

Critic reviews

"The story of Z goes to the heart of the central questions of our age. In the battle between man and a hostile environment, who wins? A fascinating and brilliant book." (Malcolm Gladwell, author of Blink and The Tipping Point)

Not David Grann’s best but interesting

Reader botches many pronunciations. I guess it just seems like an unresolved story because nothing was ever really recovered from the expedition. Will keep moving through Grann’s catalog though.

A bit of a bore

I found all this most uninteresting. No real conclusion was reached, only the author telling how he himself was affected. I'm not sure I'll try anything else by Grann. Slow, inconclusive, and with a handful of exceptions, uninformative about Z. If you're on the fence about this one give it a miss.

Great Read

If you could sum up The Lost City of Z in three words, what would they be?

Adventure, anthropology, mystery

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Lost City of Z?

Any mention of bugs burrowing and living under the skin of the men for long periods of time...I can't get those images out of my head!

Have you listened to any of Mark Deakins’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

This was my first.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

No extreme reaction, and definitely no laughing! It was very relate-able though, so I feel like I really got to know the men and what they were going through. This story will stick with me for a while.

Any additional comments?

It was a little dry in places, but isn't most non-fiction? I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was a case study in adventure, in native people, in the rain forest, and in human nature. Not that having a movie based on a book should denote its success, but I honestly cannot believe there is not a movie based on this one, given the number of people who tromped off into uncharted territory looking for the original lost crew, and then those who went off looking for them when they didn't return! The amount of fame given to this "Lost City of Z" in it's day is amazing, and that I'd never heard of it before I read this book, even more so! I also thought it was amazing how awful the natives were treated (maimed, tortured, killed by the hundreds and thousands) by early explorers, and that THAT has not received more attention in our history books or by Hollywood.
I also read Endurance, about a shipwreck in the Antarctic, and found it absolutely fascinating, if not unbearably unlucky, that one of the men who survived that hell went on to experience this one.
All in all, I would recommend this to a friend. If you love history, exploration, and/ or real-life mysteries, this book is for you!

Interesting, but a weirdly anticlimactic ending.

I followed the advice of reviewers for this book and listened to River of Doubt first. I agree that it is a more entertaining book, but after finishing it I was still sufficiently curious to pick up this one as well. The story is interesting, but I felt a bit mislead about what it was going to be about. The description bills the story as an investigative reporter trying to solve the mysterious disappearance of Percy Fawcett's party in the Amazon. The book is really more a detailed history of Fawcett and his motivations and then an exploration of the many people who subsequently tried unsuccessfully to find out definitively what happened to Fawcett over the years. This story was quite interesting, though Fawcett does not come out looking particularly well. However, the actual exploration of the author sort of concludes in an anti-climactic way because while he decides that he has learned the truth about what happened to Fawcett, it is based on a third-hand account that had been previously reported so it was not exactly new ground being covered. Honestly it seemed obvious from the outset that there was never going to be any way to prove what happened definitively without actually recovering Fawcett's remains (or those of his son or Raleigh Rimell), a task that seemed next to impossible due to drastic changes to the land in that area. It is interesting for the history of Fawcett and other Amazonian explorers, but River of Doubt is far superior for the description of the experience of exploring the Amazon.

Builds through conclusion

Slow start that builds. Excellent adventure disaster science tale mix.

word word word word word

Exciting story

This is an exciting true story. The details of the life in the Amazon is amazing.

Became a bit monotonous

The author’s voice was a bit dry for me and the story out of gas. The words settled a bit too quickly into an unhurried pace and I just couldn’t maintain attention. I bowed out before the first hour had passed.

¡Amé este libro!

Me encantó la facilidad y la manera en que David Grann entreteje la historia y las vivencias personales mientras intentaba resolver uno de los misterios más grandes del siglo XX.

OK Read

Slow read but intense storytelling. Enjoyed the stories about the different tribes they encountered. Fin.

Amazing book

Couldn't stop listening, heard about it on NPR book club excellent source.
The narrator was very captivating as well, much recommended.