Lost City of Z – 3/5 stars This promised a lot more than it delivered I felt like. This happened for a few different reasons. One, I think it’s a nearly impossible task to write a satisfyingly concluding recounting of a set of explorations that disappeared unless you 100% figure out what happened and find direct evidence, and despite whatever kind of overly positive spin at the end, I just don’t think it was able to do so. Two, not only was most of this […]
I want to assign my students some of these, but they might be toooooo murdery.
Devil and Sherlock Holmes – 4/5 All the stories in this collection of long nonfiction journalism are good. A few of them are absolutely great. They’re great because they are so carefully cultivated as subjects, well-researched, and satisfying. There is a way in which all these stories are mysteries, and what makes so many of them great is that they aren’t generally covering any huge topic that would have been covered regularly and thoroughly in the news. So even though several deal with circumstances from […]
Investigative essays on various topics. Most of them were great.
The Devil & Sherlock Holmes is a collection of David Grann’s investigative journalism, covering a wide range of topics (though, as the subtitle of this book suggests, he is a bit fixated on stories of murder, madness and obsession, particularly the latter). David Grann is very good at what he does, and this collection is proof of that. All the essays in this book have been previously published in newspapers and magazines, including the two essays that gave the inspiration for the mashed-up title (“Mysterious […]
Murder and Mayhem in Oklahoma
Everyone’s history deserves to be told. One of the principal reactions I had to David Grann’s new book, about a series of heinous murders committed against wealthy Osage Indians in the 1920s, was incredulity that I had never heard even an inkling about this terrible chapter in American history. The story, in brief: after being forced out of their original homeland the Osage Indians found themselves on a rocky, arid plain in Oklahoma that was given to them essentially because no one else wanted it. […]
I’ll be staying at home, thanks…
Ever since reading The Worst Journey in the World, an account written by one of the survivors of Robert Falcon Scott’s doomed expedition to the South Pole, I’ve been fascinated by explorers. Until now, I’ve read exclusively about explorers of the Antarctic. The Lost City of Z takes us to the other extreme – the Amazonian jungle. While the polar explorers are faced with a bleak, desolate and treacherous landscape, freezing temperatures, rationing and storms, those who enter the jungle are faced with dangers that are […]
Lost and Found?
When you decide to read a book that is already a popular phenomenon, such as a book with a lengthy stay on the best-seller lists and a Hollywood film adaptation, you often find yourself liking the book or, if not particularly enjoying the work itself at least understanding the aspects that allowed it to become so popular in the first place. For me though, The Lost City of Z falls into a rarer category wherein I at least sort of liked it but have no […]
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