Our 2010 Favorites: The Lost City of Z

To celebrate the close of this year and the beginning of the next, we’ve decided to take a look back at our reading family’s personal favorites of 2010. Enjoy!

Early twentieth-century British explorer Percy Fawcett, the subject of this thrilling bestseller, was one of the last of a breed of explorers/surveyors who set off into the unmapped parts of the globe — in his case the Amazon jungle — with little more than a backpack and some surveying equipment. Fawcett is model of British stoicism and reserve, and obsessively devoted to solving the tantalizing, centuries-old riddle of whether a lost civilization existed deep in the jungle.

After reading Grann’s gripping account of Fawcett’s life and his mysterious disappearance, you won’t be able to help admiring the explorer’s superhuman fortitude and bravery, as he braves poisonous plants, deadly animals, and terrifying diseases in search of a fabled lost civilization. Grann is just as dogged in his quest to uncover what really happened to Fawcett, and whether the “Lost City of Z” ever existed. His hunt for what really happened will keep readers in suspense until the very last page.

–Jeff A., Editorial

– Click here for a Reading Group Guide.
– Click here to read an excerpt.
– Click here to buy the book.

Was there a particular book that you or your reading group couldn’t stop discussing this year? Let us know in the comments!