#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of Killers of the Flower Moon comes a masterpiece of narrative nonfiction that unravels the greatest exploration mystery of the twentieth century—the story of the legendary British explorer who ventured into the Amazon jungle in search of a fabled civilization and never returned. “Suspenseful…rollicking.” —The New York Times In 1925, Percy Fawcett went into the Amazon jungle, in search of a fabled civilization. He never returned. Over the years countless perished trying to find evidence of his party and the place he called “The Lost City of Z.” In this masterpiece, journalist David Grann interweaves the spellbinding stories of Fawcett’s quest for “Z” and his own journey into the deadly jungle. Look for David Grann’s new book, The Wager, coming in April 2023!
**NOW A MAJOR FILM STARRING ROBERT PATTINSON, CHARLIE HUNNAM AND SIENNA MILLER** ‘A riveting, exciting and thoroughly compelling tale of adventure’JOHN GRISHAM The story of Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett, the inspiration behind Conan Doyle's The Lost World, by the author of the international Number One bestsellers KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON and THE WAGER Fawcett was among the last of a legendary breed of British explorers. For years he explored the Amazon and came to believe that its jungle concealed a large, complex civilization, like El Dorado. Obsessed with its discovery, he christened it the City of Z. In 1925, Fawcett headed into the wilderness with his son Jack, vowing to make history. They vanished without a trace. For the next eighty years, hordes of explorers plunged into the jungle, trying to find evidence of Fawcett's party or Z. Some died from disease and starvation; others simply disappeared. In this spellbinding true tale of lethal obsession, David Grann retraces the footsteps of Fawcett and his followers as he unravels one of the greatest mysteries of exploration. ‘A wonderful story of a lost age of heroic exploration’ Sunday Times ‘Marvellous ... An engrossing book whose protagonist could out-think Indiana Jones’ Daily Telegraph ‘The best story in the world, told perfectly’ Evening Standard ‘A fascinating and brilliant book’ Malcolm Gladwell
The inspiration for the major motion picture "The Lost City of Z," mystic and legendary British explorer Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett spent 10 years wandering the forests and death-filled rivers of Brazil in search of a fabled lost city. Finally, convinced that he had discovered the location, he set out for the last time toward destination “Z” in 1925, never to be heard from again.This thrilling and mysterious account of Fawcett’s ten years of travels in deadly jungles and forests in search of a secret city was compiled by his younger son, Fawcett's companion on his journeys, from manuscripts, letters, and logbooks. An international sensation when it was first published in 1953, Exploration Fawcett was praised by the likes of Graham Greene and Harold Nicolson, and found its way to Ernest Hemingway's bookshelf. Reckless and inspired, full of fortitude and doom, this is a book to rival Heart of Darkness, except that the harrowing accounts described in its pages are completely true. To this day, Colonel Fawcett's disappearance remains a great mystery.
This thrilling and mysterious account of Fawcett's ten years of travels in forests and death-filled rivers in search of a secret city was compiled from manuscripts, letters and logbooks by his son. ' The disappearance of Colonel Fawcett in the Matto Grosso remains one of the great unsolved mysteries of today. In 1925 Fawcett was convinced that he had discovered the location of a lost city; he had set out with two companions, one of whom was his eldest son, to destination 'Z', never to be heard of again. His younger son, Brian Fawcett, has compiled this book from letters and records left by his father whose last written words to his wife were: 'You need have no fear of any failure...' Fawcett had tried to find lost cities for ten years: ' That the cities exist I know'. 'a book of great power....should be read by everyone' Daily Telegraph
From an award-winning author comes a picture book biography that feels like Indiana Jones for kids! British explorer Percy Fawcett believed that hidden deep within the Amazon rainforest was an ancient city, lost for the ages. Most people didn’t even believe this city existed. But if Fawcett could find it, he would be rich and famous forever. This is the true story of one man’s thrilling, dangerous journey into the jungle, and what he found on his quest for the lost city of Z.
The #1 New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller, named one of the best books of the year by The Boston Globe and National Geographic: acclaimed journalist Douglas Preston takes readers on a true adventure deep into the Honduran rainforest in this riveting narrative about the discovery of a lost civilization -- culminating in a stunning medical mystery. Since the days of conquistador Hernán Cortés, rumors have circulated about a lost city of immense wealth hidden somewhere in the Honduran interior, called the White City or the Lost City of the Monkey God. Indigenous tribes speak of ancestors who fled there to escape the Spanish invaders, and they warn that anyone who enters this sacred city will fall ill and die. In 1940, swashbuckling journalist Theodore Morde returned from the rainforest with hundreds of artifacts and an electrifying story of having found the Lost City of the Monkey God-but then committed suicide without revealing its location. Three quarters of a century later, bestselling author Doug Preston joined a team of scientists on a groundbreaking new quest. In 2012 he climbed aboard a rickety, single-engine plane carrying the machine that would change everything: lidar, a highly advanced, classified technology that could map the terrain under the densest rainforest canopy. In an unexplored valley ringed by steep mountains, that flight revealed the unmistakable image of a sprawling metropolis, tantalizing evidence of not just an undiscovered city but an enigmatic, lost civilization. Venturing into this raw, treacherous, but breathtakingly beautiful wilderness to confirm the discovery, Preston and the team battled torrential rains, quickmud, disease-carrying insects, jaguars, and deadly snakes. But it wasn't until they returned that tragedy struck: Preston and others found they had contracted in the ruins a horrifying, sometimes lethal-and incurable-disease. Suspenseful and shocking, filled with colorful history, hair-raising adventure, and dramatic twists of fortune, THE LOST CITY OF THE MONKEY GOD is the absolutely true, eyewitness account of one of the great discoveries of the twenty-first century.
"Percy Fawcett was a mapmaker and an adventurer. In the early 1900s, he spent years mapping out the jungles of South America. Fawcett became obsessed with the idea of a lost city of gold hidden deep in the jungle. At the age of 57, Fawcett, his 21-year-old son Jack, and Jack's friend Raleigh Rimell left on a quest to find the Lost City of Z. The three men were never heard from again. Untangle the clues they left behind"--
For fans of The Lost City of Z, The River of Doubt, and Lost in Shangri-La—a real-life Indiana Jones story, set in the mysterious jungles of Honduras. "I began to daydream about the jungle...." On April 6, 1940, explorer and future World War II spy Theodore Morde (who would one day attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler), anxious about the perilous journey that lay ahead of him. Deep inside “the little Amazon,” the jungles of Honduras’s Mosquito Coast—one of the largest, wildest, and most impenetrable stretches of tropical land in the world—lies the fabled city of Ciudad Blanca: the White City. For centuries, it has lured explorers, including Spanish conquistador Herman Cortes. Some intrepid souls got lost within its dense canopy; some disappeared. Others never made it out alive. Then, in 1939, Theodore Morde claimed that he had located this El Dorado-like city. Yet before he revealed its location, Morde died under strange circumstances, giving credence to those who believe that the spirits of the Ciudad Blanca killed him. In Jungleland, Christopher S. Stewart seeks to retrace Morde's steps and answer the questions his death left hanging. Is this lost city real or only a tantalyzing myth? What secrets does the jungle hold? What continues to draw explorers into the unknown jungleland at such terrific risk? In this absorbing true-life thriller, journalist Christopher S. Stewart sets out to find answers—a white-knuckle adventure that combines Morde’s wild, enigmatic tale with Stewart’s own epic journey to find the truth about the White City.
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon and The Wager, a thrilling and powerful true story of adventure and obsession in the Antarctic, lavishly illustrated with color photographs. "[Grann is] one of the preeminent adventure and true-crime writers working today."—New York Magazine Henry Worsley was a devoted husband and father and a decorated British special forces officer who believed in honor and sacrifice. He was also a man obsessed. He spent his life idolizing Ernest Shackleton, the nineteenth-century polar explorer, who tried to become the first person to reach the South Pole, and later sought to cross Antarctica on foot. Shackleton never completed his journeys, but he repeatedly rescued his men from certain death, and emerged as one of the greatest leaders in history. Worsley felt an overpowering connection to those expeditions. He was related to one of Shackleton's men, Frank Worsley, and spent a fortune collecting artifacts from their epic treks across the continent. He modeled his military command on Shackleton's legendary skills and was determined to measure his own powers of endurance against them. He would succeed where Shackleton had failed, in the most brutal landscape in the world. In 2008, Worsley set out across Antarctica with two other descendants of Shackleton's crew, battling the freezing, desolate landscape, life-threatening physical exhaustion, and hidden crevasses. Yet when he returned home he felt compelled to go back. On November 13, 2015, at age 55, Worsley bid farewell to his family and embarked on his most perilous quest: to walk across Antarctica alone. David Grann tells Worsley's remarkable story with the intensity and power that have led him to be called "simply the best narrative nonfiction writer working today." Illustrated with more than fifty stunning photographs from Worsley's and Shackleton's journeys, The White Darkness is both a gorgeous keepsake volume and a spellbinding story of courage, love, and a man pushing himself to the extremes of human capacity. Look for David Grann’s latest bestselling book, The Wager!
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon and The Wager—and one of the most gifted reporters and storytellers of his generation—comes a “horrifying, hilarious, and outlandish” (Entertainment Weekly) collection of gripping true crime mysteries about people whose obsessions propel them into unfathomable and often deadly circumstances. "[Grann is] one of the preeminent adventure and true-crime writers working today."—New York Magazine Whether David Grann is investigating a mysterious murder, tracking a chameleon-like con artist, or hunting an elusive giant squid, he has proven to be a superb storyteller. In The Devil and Sherlock Holmes, Grann takes the reader around the world, revealing a gallery of rogues and heroes with their own particular fixations who show that truth is indeed stranger than fiction. Look for David Grann’s latest bestselling book, The Wager!