The Lost City of Z by David Grann

The Lost City of Z is a non-fiction book by David Grann. It tells the story of British explorer Percy Fawcett.

Percy Fawcett disappeared in the 1920's with his son and his son's friend while looking for an ancient city in the Amazon, a city that he had named Z. For decades, explorers then went in search for Fawcett in the hopes of finding either him or what had happened to him, often without much luck (often disappearing themselves). Grann, a journalist who never did ANYTHING in the outdoors (and took the elevator up two flights to his apartment instead of walking it) decided to go in search of Fawcett himself AND he was able to reveal new evidence how Fawcett died and whether he had really found his city or not.

I found this book to be alternatively captivating and then quite boring. There were parts that were absolutely fascinating. I found the parts about Fawcett's early life and the author's life and motivations to be really, interesting. Oftentimes, the parts about the various explorations that Fawcett went on before his latest and greatest were boring. They were all the same and they all ran into each other. There was nothing to distinguish them and I found my attention lagging at those parts. I would have to put the book down and then come back to it later on. The book itself was very well written and very well researched. I was very impressed about the depth of information that was presented - Grann went all out.

I walked away generally liking the book, in spite of its slow points.