A review by briandbremer
The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann

adventurous dark informative mysterious fast-paced

4.0

This is a great zippy read, moving at a brusque pace and really putting the reader in the mindset of the the Europeans and Americans who hacked their way into the Amazon. Once again and to the detriment of the book, Grann can't help but insert himself into the story (the introduction ends on one of the most asinine cliffhangers in history given than Grann, you know, clearly wrote the book so he wasn't in peril of dying). But the chapters of him shopping for gear to go to the Amazon or flailing in the jungle are fairly short so as to not drag down the book. 

The ending is also darkly amusing (not about Fawcett and his expedition, but in the context of Grann writing the book at all and his general air of self importance). 

Grann spends all this time talking about his research into this mysterious Amazonian civilization only to meet with an anthropologist who's been living with a tribe in the Amazon at the end who is like, "Oh yeah, we found the city. We're publishing about it next year and I can show you the earthen wall 200 yards from here." It just shows the gap between Grann's armature archeology and what professionals are doing


Great read overall though
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