When we explored the ruins in 2015, we were very likely the first human beings to enter the city since it was abandoned 500 years ago. But in this case, the city was found in an aerial survey of an unexplored valley in the Mosquitia mountains of Honduras using a technology called lidar. Unfortunately, almost all of these sites had previously been looted. Most major sites in Central America were “discovered” when indigenous people led archaeologists to them. But what did you really find?ĭOUGLAS PRESTON: We found something exceedingly rare, not just a lost city but an archaeological site that was untouched. KATHLEEN SHARP: You’ve written a rich narrative nonfiction tale about trying to discover a lost city. Preston, who splits his time between Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Maine, talked about his new book with Kathleen Sharp, an award-winning journalist, author, and screenwriter. In 2014, when Amazon blocked the shipments of Hachette’s books and financially squeezed 3,000 authors, Preston formed Authors United, which petitioned the Justice Department to investigate Amazon's monopolistic ways. (It famously sued Google Books for violating copyright law by copying and distributing millions of books written by US authors.) In 2004, Preston and other authors formed the International Thriller Writers (ITW) to bring more attention to that genre and to lift the fortunes of debut and midlist authors. He’s a board member of the Authors Guild, which represents published authors on issues of copyright, fair contracts, and tax fairness. Then, there is the crucial work that Preston does on behalf of all working authors. That book spent four months on the New York Times list, and is currently under development as a film. Preston is a journalist who writes for The New Yorker, Smithsonian, and other magazines, and has penned other nonfiction books, notably Monster of Florence, which he co-wrote with Italian journalist Mario Spezi. (Gale Anne Hurd is executive producing the adaptation of the best-selling series for Spike TV). For over 20 years, he and his writing partner, Lincoln Childs, have written over 20 novels, most of which feature the albino detective Aloysius Pendergast. Preston moves easily between several literary worlds. The book, which has made several bestseller lists, is a hair-raising adventure of the first degree. DOUGLAS PRESTON’s new book The Lost City of the Monkey God (Grand Central) is the true story of contemporary scientists searching for an ancient city with a high-tech machine and finding so much more.
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