Breathe To Read

Breathe To Read

Friday, February 22, 2019

Read The World - Honduras - The Lost City of the Monkey God

Book: The Lost City of the Monkey God
Author: Douglas Preston
Pages: 336
Book takes place in the country: YES
Author is from the country: NO
I have visited: NO


This is my 26th read for 2019.  I listened to this book.  I did better with this book, listening wise.  I decided that I would listen to books on the tram instead of read for "practice" and it went well.  Also helped me finish the book quicker.


This is the story of the author's journey in 2012 with a team of scientist into Honduras to find the lost White City otherwise known as the Lost City of the Monkey God.  The story is that it was a city where in the 1400s, people fled to hide from Spanish invaders.  The rumor is, that anyone who entered the city would fall ill and die.  Especially if you disturbed a particular flower that grew there. There was actually a journalist who went searching for the city in the 1940s, but committed suicide before he could reveal the location.

Now with proper technology to search the jungle, Preston and his team go in for a few weeks in search for the city and the artifacts.  They do happen across a huge cache of carved items and in doing so, endure the dangers of the Honduras jungle.

The last 1/3 of the book talks about the parasitic infection that half of the team came down with on their return from the expidition.  This leads to an explanation of how Christopher Columbus and his crew brought in European diseases to the area and killed off a large portion of Honduras' indigenous people who could not fend off things like small pox.

I enjoyed this book for the most part.  What they came across in the jungle was incredible and scary.  They are lucky that none of them were killed.  About 1/3 of the story is about the expidition itself, and the rest is about the history of the area and then the medical intervention that the team received when they returned.  While I found the medical part the most interesting (I am a nurse after all), I could see how this was a bit much.  It isn't what the story was supposed to be about, after all.  It should have been more about the actual hunt and discovery of the lost city than about the team dealing with a jungle illness.  BUT, I would not use this critique to discourage you from reading the book.  It is a very interesting historical recounting of the Hondurase lost city.

Stars: 4





2 comments:

  1. Great review, I almost dislike coming onto your blog because there hasn't been a book yet that I haven't wanted to read afterwards lolol. But! I love it, and I can't wait to see where you go/what you read next! I'm super curious as to what they found in the jungle lol (I NEED TO KNOW!)

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  2. This sounds fascinating! It makes me think of Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air, about a disastrous Everest expedition. Nature is a cruel mistress and forays out into the wild don't always end up where you planned, but what a neat story. I'd definitely like to read this.

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