Last week, David Grann and I met in his office at The New Yorker, in midtown Manhattan. It is a glorious fire hazard because he doesn't throw anything away. Grann has been a staff writer at the magazine since 2003 and published two books, the enthralling The Lost City of Z, and The Devil and Sherlock Holmes, a collection of his reportage. Stacks of papers related to finished stories ("That's Z, that's Cuba, that's Willingham…") line the walls, while the floor is devoted to a book-in-progress, as yet untitled, on the Osage Indian murders and the birth of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

For fans, a new [...]

Here's a suggestion for lunch: Go to the Meatball Shop on Stanton Street and Allen Street on the Lower East Side. (If you don't live in New York City, leave now, and you can make it for tomorrow's lunch.) Go alone, as the place is very popular and there will be a line out the door (even at lunchtime!) waiting for tables of two or four, but single patrons can slip onto an open stool between two other people at the bar. Bring something to read—this week's New Yorker magazine is good—as the servers will be busy and take a little while to get to you. When they [...]

I recently finished The Lost City of Z, David Grann's account of the British explorer Percy Fawcett's final journey in the Amazon basin, where Fawcett disappeared in 1925. Meticulously researched, staunchly reported and beautifully written, it covers the history of London's Royal Geographic Society, to which Percy belonged, and the 300-year quest for the mythical golden city, El Dorado, as well as the rubber trade and its effect on indigenous tribes who shoot six-foot arrows from seven-foot bows. And piranha, and electric eels and anacondas and poisonous insects that attack your eyes and maggots that fester under your skin and toothpick-sized parasite catfish that swim up your penis through [...]

"Morgan handed Cherne a 1946 five-centavo coin. Its edge had a small notch. If Cherne wanted to send someone to see him in the future, he should give that person the coin for presentation to Morgan—a sign of trustworthiness." —If you have been wondering whether or not to invest the time it takes to read all 21,563 words of David Grann's article in this week's New Yorker about William Alexander Morgan, the Toledo, Ohio-born Cuban revolutionary known as "El Americano," I encourage you to do so. (Subscription NOT required to read it through that link.) I finished it this morning and it is fascinating and thrilling and heartbreaking. The [...]