Best Seller #1 - The Lost City of Z

I don't usually choose books by looking at the best seller list, but ironically, I have just finished two books that are well up there in today's New York Times Book Review. The first is David Grann's "The Lost City of Z," which I purchased based upon both the topic and the very favorable review in the Times. I made a similar purchase of Adam Cohen's "Nothing to Fear" and regretted doing so. The good news it that I read that book almost right away instead of putting it away for some future unknown date, but after reading it I realized that I just as easily could have waited and borrowed it from some library.

After that experience, I purchased "The Lost City of Z" with more than a little trepidation that it would end up with the same feelings of dissatisfaction. However in this case it wasn't just the favorable review it was the topic of searching for an ancient civilization that appealed to me. Whether it is Heinrich Schliemann's search for the Troy of the Iliad and Odyssey or H. Rider Haggard's novels such as "King Solomon's Mines," such stories or possibilities have always fascinated me. Especially from the perspective of an armchair explorer.

In this case David Grann tells the story of British explorer Henry Fawcett's obsession with finding a lost city in the depths of the Amazon jungle - a city he named "Z." Grann tells the story by alternating Fawcett's story with his own (Grann's) story of researching Fawcett. This is not limited to academic research in archives, but Grann's attempt to follow Fawcett's route on his last journey. Since Fawcett, his son, and another young man disappeared on that journey in 1925, there are really two searches - one to find out what happened to them, the other for the city of Z.

One thing that Grann accomplishes is to end any illusions anyone might have about the glamour and romance of jungle exploration. His description of the risks from dangerous insects alone was enough to make me wonder how any one survived such expeditions, even before worrying about other animals, starvation, and hostile natives. Some of these are repeated on Grann's own journey perhaps illustrating his own obsession, if not with Z, with telling the story.

As I read the book, I wasn't sure that it was a good purchase. After all how could Grann or anyone hope to find out what happened to Fawcett more than 80 years after he disappeared. Certainly neither he nor his companions could still be alive and it was equally unlikely that any traces of them could have survived that long as well. However after all his research and journeying, Grann reasons his way to the most likely explanation, one that is hard to refute - almost an application of Ockham's Razor.

On the larger issue of the city of Z, however, Grann ends up with something much more interesting, a satisfying ending to such a quest. An ending that suggests that one of the first challenges is such an enterprise is to be clear about what it really is that we are looking for in the first place. The ending brought the story full circle and made me glad not only that I had read it, but that I had bought it. I would recommend the book for anyone who has an interest in stories of discovery - especially reading them from the comforts of home.