Friends of Montclair Library

If cold weather has you daydreaming about someplace warm and tropical, here are a half dozen books for adults in the Montclair collection, both fiction and non-fiction, set in the Amazon rainforest:

The Lost City of Z by David Grann (918.11046 GRANN)
In 1925, British explorer Percy Fawcett disappeared in the Amazon jungle while searching for a fabled civilization he called “The Lost City of Z.” “Journalist David Grann interweaves the spellbinding stories of Fawcett’s quest for ‘Z’ and his own journey into the deadly jungle, as he unravels the greatest exploration mystery of the twentieth century.” — Amazon.com

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett (FIC PATCHETT)
In this novel, a researcher at a pharmaceutical company journeys into the heart of the Amazonian delta to check on a field team that has been silent for two years — a dangerous assignment that forces her to confront the ghosts of her past.

The Mapmaker’s Wife by Robert Whitaker (981.1 WHITAKER)
The true story of an 18th century expedition to South America by a team of French scientists racing to measure the circumference of the earth, an unlikely love between one scientist and a beautiful Peruvian noblewoman, and her quest through the Amazon to reunite with her husband after a calamitous twenty-year separation.

One River by Wade Davis (581.61 DAVIS)
“A fascinating narrative of the exploits of Harvard ethnobotanist Richard Evans Schultes, interwoven with the much more benign adventure of his student, author and ethnobotanist Davis (author of The Serpent and the Rainbow).” — Kirkus Reviews

The Lost World by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (e-book)
“The Lost World is a novel released in 1912 by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle concerning an expedition to a plateau in the Amazon basin of South America where prehistoric animals still survive.” — Wikipedia

The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey by Candice Millard (918.1 MILLARD)
The true story of Theodore Roosevelt’s harrowing exploration of one of the most dangerous rivers on earth.

Looking for more tropical books? Try one of the themed lists at GoodReads.com, like Books Set in Amazon Rainforest or Books Set in Tropical Locations.