Once again, my favorite podcast Literary Disco delivers with an outstanding book recommendation. I hadn’t heard of this book, but thankfully the wait for it was long at my local library. I say thankfully because I am glad that people are becoming familiar with this gruesome and awesome (in the awe-stricken sense of the word) true story that should mar our nations history, if the people of our nation knew anything about it. And if, um, it wasn’t already super thoroughly marred. The Osage Nation, […]
“It’s Drivin’ Me Mad, It’s Makin’ Me Crazy”
The Lost City of Z is both the tale of Percy Fawcett’s multiple expeditions to find the mythological City of Z (El Dorado) and David Grann’s, “expedition” to discover, once and for all, what happened to Percy Fawcett? What did happen to Percy Fawcett? At times it plays out like an inception-style story of the author searching for previous expeditions that were searching for the Fawcett expedition. There is plenty of mystery and intrigue in the book. Percy Fawcett comes across as a fascinating […]
A rehash and a rehash
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 […]