The Lost City of the Monkey God: A True Story - Tapa dura

"Preston builds a compelling case for the scientific significance of what the expedition unearthed....The year may still be young, but I would wager a small fortune that Douglas Preston has already written the best snake-decapitation scene of 2017....The book's most affecting moments [center] on the otherworldly nature of the jungle itself....Memoirs of jungle adventures too often devolve into lurid catalogs of hardships [but] Preston proves too thoughtful an observer and too skilled a storyteller to settle for churning out danger porn. He has instead created something nuanced and sublime: a warm and geeky paean to the revelatory power of archaeology....Few other writers possess such heartfelt appreciation for the ways in which artifacts can yield the stories of who we are."--The New York Times Book Review

"A well-documented and engaging read...The author's narrative is rife with jungle derring-do and the myriad dangers of the chase."--USA Today

"Deadly snakes, flesh-eating parasites, and some of the most forbidding jungle terrain on earth were not enough to deter Douglas Preston from a great story."--The Boston Globe

"Breezy, colloquial and sometimes very funny...A very entertaining book."--The Wall Street Journal

"Admirers of David Grann's The Lost City of Z will find their thirst for armchair jungle adventuring quenched here... Irresistibly gripping."--Publishers Weekly, starred review

"Let author Douglas Preston give testimony to the old adage: Truth is stranger than fiction...The Lost City of the Monkey God is more than just an adventure story. It examines such modern issues as the ethics of archeological expeditions, man's destruction of the rainforest and the incessant creep of technology and its effects on indigenous peoples. Readers will find themselves both shocked and captivated by this account of mysteries old and new."--Bookpage

"A story that moves from thrilling to sobering, fascinating to downright scary--trademark Preston, in other words, and another winner."--Kirkus, starred review

"Replete with informative archaeology lessons and colorful anecdotes about the challenges Elkins' crew faced during the expedition, including torrential rains and encounters with deadly snakes, Preston's uncommon travelogue is as captivating as any of his more fanciful fictional thrillers."--Booklist

"For anyone who dreams of lost times and places--and who doesn't?--this is the book. Revelatory, chilling, creepy, and alive with deadly snakes and insects bearing incurable disease, it's high adventure at its best, and all true."--Erik Larson, New York Times bestselling author of Dead Wake and The Devil in the White City

"What reader could resist a new book by Douglas Preston called THE LOST CITY OF THE MONKEY GOD? Not this reader. Preston's book offers rewards for both the mystery fan and the nonfiction aficionado. THE LOST CITY is addictive-fast-paced and riveting, but it's also important. We mustn't repeat the cataclysmic mistakes of the past. Ironically-as THE LOST CITY illustrates-that's exactly what our short-sighted civilization is doing right now."--James Patterson

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.