Three thousand years, read in instalments

There is a kind of reading that only happens for me in the air. At home the book on my nightstand loses to sleep almost every night. But on a long flight, somewhere over a country I will never visit, I become the reader I always mean to be. No signal, no laundry, nobody under four feet tall requesting a snack.

This year my flight book has been The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt by Toby Wilkinson. I bought it for one trip and it has now lasted four. That is not slow reading. That is three thousand years of history, and I refuse to rush a civilisation.

What Kind of Book It Is

It is a proper, serious history, written by an Egyptologist, covering everything from the first king who unified the river valley to Cleopatra at the very end. But it reads like a story. Wilkinson does not romanticise the pharaohs. He is honest about how hard the lives of ordinary people were, how much of the grandeur was built on their backs. I found that honesty made the pyramids more interesting, not less.

Readers who know this subject well seem to rate it highly. One called it the best single book on Egyptian history they had read, the kind that builds real understanding rather than giving you a tour. Another, an academic in a different field of history, said it was exactly the retelling they had been waiting for. Several mention being sad when it ended, which is the best thing anyone can say about a long book.

One honest note: this is not a light read. If you want a breezy introduction with more pictures than paragraphs, this will feel dense. It rewards attention, and it expects some.

Reading It in Pieces

I thought reading it across months would ruin it. It did the opposite. Each dynasty became its own instalment, and walking back onto a plane felt like returning to a serial I had missed. My husband asked me once what was happening in my book, the way you ask about a television series. A usurper had seized the throne, I told him. He nodded seriously and went back to his own screen.

There is an illustrated hardback and a Kindle edition. I read it on the Kindle for the obvious suitcase reasons, but the paper edition with its plates is the one I would give as a gift.

Somewhere over the clouds, reading about a kingdom rising for the third time in a thousand years, I stopped feeling guilty about how long it was taking me. Some books are meant to be lived alongside.

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