After reading A Wiseman Once Said’s blog on her “literary crack” books, I thought about what my literary crack books are. If I were to pick, I would have to go with the Amelia Peabody Series by Elizabeth Peters. If I were to be a crackhead, which I am not, I would imagine that the feeling I would get would be similar to the feeling I get reading these books. The first time/book, you don’t know what to expect, but you are pleasantly surprised. After that first one, you find yourself re-arranging your schedule so you can get to Borders/the street corner to pick up the next installment, which doesn’t satisfy your thirst and results in you going back and stocking up with the remaining 17 installments so that you don’t have to anxiously await your next fix anymore should you finish the previous one after hours.
The Amelia Peabody series follows Amelia, an amateur archeologist,, her curmudgeonly archaeologist husband Emerson and their family in what is, in my opinion, the golden age of Archaeology in Egypt - the late 1800’s to early 1900’s. This is the time of the greatest and/or most famous names of Egyptian archaeology. I say and/or because some historical figures of this time (*cough, cough* Wallis Budge *cough cough*) are famous but not necessarily “great” because they spent most of their career smuggling antiquities out of Egypt and writing horrible textbooks on hieroglyphs and the Egyptian Book of the Dead which are still inexplicably in print today. Some of the greatest finds also took place during this time period: Belzoni entered the second pyramid of Giza and found Seti I tomb in the Valley of the Kings, numerous cache’s of royal mummies, the discovery of Tell El Amarna, and perhaps the most famous of them all, the discovery of King Tutankhamen’s tomb by Howard Carter. Each book focuses on a different expedition as Amelia solves a new mystery, whether it be a mummy that has seemingly come to life and is haunting the dig, the disappearance of an archaeologist or the theft of a certain antiquity. The books are light reads, but they are all page turners. Part of the reason I love these books is that Peters (a pen name – the author is really Barbara Mertz, an Egyptologist holding a Ph.D from the famed University of Chicago), fills each book with accurate historical events and descriptions of the time period. Also, since a pet peeve of mine is when random people with no educational background in a subject write a historical fiction book, I enjoy the fact that Peters is an actual practicing archaeologist who has excavated in Egypt. In all honesty, half of the things I know about ancient Egypt, I have read in one of these books and then have either done research on or obtained additional non-fiction books about.
If you have a lot of time to spare, I suggest you check these books out. (you need a lot of time since there are 19 books in the series and if you are anything like me, you will be hooked and do nothing but read this series for about 3 weeks straight) The first book in the series is The Crocodile on the Sandbank, and as I have already completed my yearly reading of the first few books in the series, I’m willing to lend it out to anyone interested. However, be prepared for me to then force the remaining 18 books as well as my slowly growing library of non-fiction books concerning ancient Egypt upon you.
The Amelia Peabody series follows Amelia, an amateur archeologist,, her curmudgeonly archaeologist husband Emerson and their family in what is, in my opinion, the golden age of Archaeology in Egypt - the late 1800’s to early 1900’s. This is the time of the greatest and/or most famous names of Egyptian archaeology. I say and/or because some historical figures of this time (*cough, cough* Wallis Budge *cough cough*) are famous but not necessarily “great” because they spent most of their career smuggling antiquities out of Egypt and writing horrible textbooks on hieroglyphs and the Egyptian Book of the Dead which are still inexplicably in print today. Some of the greatest finds also took place during this time period: Belzoni entered the second pyramid of Giza and found Seti I tomb in the Valley of the Kings, numerous cache’s of royal mummies, the discovery of Tell El Amarna, and perhaps the most famous of them all, the discovery of King Tutankhamen’s tomb by Howard Carter. Each book focuses on a different expedition as Amelia solves a new mystery, whether it be a mummy that has seemingly come to life and is haunting the dig, the disappearance of an archaeologist or the theft of a certain antiquity. The books are light reads, but they are all page turners. Part of the reason I love these books is that Peters (a pen name – the author is really Barbara Mertz, an Egyptologist holding a Ph.D from the famed University of Chicago), fills each book with accurate historical events and descriptions of the time period. Also, since a pet peeve of mine is when random people with no educational background in a subject write a historical fiction book, I enjoy the fact that Peters is an actual practicing archaeologist who has excavated in Egypt. In all honesty, half of the things I know about ancient Egypt, I have read in one of these books and then have either done research on or obtained additional non-fiction books about.
If you have a lot of time to spare, I suggest you check these books out. (you need a lot of time since there are 19 books in the series and if you are anything like me, you will be hooked and do nothing but read this series for about 3 weeks straight) The first book in the series is The Crocodile on the Sandbank, and as I have already completed my yearly reading of the first few books in the series, I’m willing to lend it out to anyone interested. However, be prepared for me to then force the remaining 18 books as well as my slowly growing library of non-fiction books concerning ancient Egypt upon you.
1 comment:
I'll sign up for the Amanda Lester Egyptian book club.
Post a Comment