The Lost City of Z by David Grann
Published 2009 · 448 pages · 85,000 words · about 6 hours at an average pace · History, Journalism & Reportage, Literary Fiction, Nonfiction
How hard is The Lost City of Z to read?
The Lost City of Z scores 23 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it relatively accessible. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 28 out of 100
- Geographical and archaeological terms. Accessible.
- Sentence structure: 28 out of 100
- Abstraction: 25 out of 100
- Concrete narrative with archaeological revelation.
- Information density: 45 out of 100
- Rich with exploration history and archival research.
- Narrative indirection: 18 out of 100
- Past and present narratives alternate.
- Symbolic density: 18 out of 100
- Z as symbol of obsessive quest for the unknown.
- Ironic distance: 15 out of 100
- The 'lost civilization' that may have been real all along.
- Resolution withholding: 20 out of 100
- Fawcett's fate remains uncertain. Z's existence reframed.
- Structural complexity: 25 out of 100
- Dual timeline: Fawcett's expeditions and Grann's investigation.
How The Lost City of Z is regarded
The Lost City of Z holds a literary regard score of 44 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.