The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt, by Toby Wilkinson. While it admittedly took me four months to read this (slow going because of all the less familiar names), I liked it a lot. How vast a time period this is — and yet still so inconsequentially small from a geological/cosmological perspective. I didn’t realize it took three years (speaking of mere blips) from the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb to when they finally opened his sarcophagus. Also didn’t know that pharaoh originally meant “palace,” or how often pharaohs repurposed the materials from previous pharaohs’ tombs. (All the time.) I took Middle Egyptian and Coptic in college and reading this book reminded me of that and really made me miss studying dead languages. I need to make time for that again, somehow.
Saints volume 3. Loved it. These were mostly parts of Church history I was less familiar with, so I enjoyed filling in those gaps. It was also fascinating to see how various world events affected people in the Church in different countries. Looking forward to the next volume. In the meantime, I’ve been dipping into the global histories.
Recent fiction reads
The Justice of Kings, by Richard Swan. I really liked this. The legal/judicial aspect was right up my alley and the fantastical/horror elements also worked well for me. The writing’s great, too. Immediately bought the sequel, which came out a few weeks ago.
Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro. Didn’t like it anywhere near as much as Remains of the Day or Buried Giant. It felt a lot more like Klara and the Sun, which I also didn’t like all that much. (This type of story doesn’t appeal to me. I need to stop forgetting this.) Also, I went in having heard there was a twist and…there wasn’t one. Not really.