The Lost City of Z

I've been meaning for awhile to start posting about the books I read. I forget books I read all the time, and I hate it. It's not necessarily because they're forgettable books, either, I just have a horrible memory. So I figured keeping track of them here would be handy, for myself.

The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon (by David Grann) was the first book I read on my Kindle! And it cemented my love of the silly thing.

This book was mainly about the exploratory career of Sir Percy Fawcett, a British soldier, and his obsession with the Amazon rain forest and the idea that there was a whole lost civilization waiting to be discovered (El Dorado, as it has been termed throughout history). It also detailed a lot of the history of Amazon exploration. And quite a few nasty, scary jungle diseases.

Fawcett, and others, make many trips into the Amazon, continually mapping new area and searching for the fabled city. Many of the explorers fail to return, and are never heard from again, which prompts even more to head into the jungle to find out what happened to their comrades. 

This was a pretty good non-fiction read. I love that non-fiction writing has gotten so entertaining; nothing dry and boring like you were forced to read in high school. The author of this book actually ends up becoming slightly obsessed himself (apparently it happens with the Amazon, though I'll admit I'm content to read about it and watch shows on National Geographic), and going into the forest on the path to find out what happened to Fawcett.

Apparently it's also being turned into a movie, starring Brad Pitt. Too bad they picked Brad Pitt for it; the man has completely lost any appeal to me since shacking up with Angelina Jolie.

But back to the book: a good, entertaining read.