As part of my recent Presidential biography reading, I read River of Doubt, the story of Theodore Roosevelt descending an unexplored Amazon river after his Presidency. The book pretty well convinced me that I don't want to spend a lot of time exploring the Amazon.

The Lost City of Z did the same thing. I don't think I've ever read the line, "The men were never heard from again" more frequently than in this book.

Z is very well written; it tells two stories. The first story is that of PH Fawcett, an explorer who set out to find evidence of an ancient Amazonian city that he called simply "Z." The second is of the writer himself, on the trail of Fawcett, the literally hundreds of people who died looking for him afterward, and possibly Z itself.

A great non-fiction read. Thanks to Matt and Mary for the book!

As to the Presidential reading, I finished McCullough's John Adams on Thursday. I'll post on that in a bit. I read Z in about 24 hours. It was a well-told tale.