THE EGYPTOLOGY HANDBOOK

Designed more for a quick flip-through than any sort of serious study, this appendage to 2004’s Egyptology looks like a battered notebook of general remarks about ancient Egypt with memorabilia clipped in, compiled by “Emily Sands,” the fictive vanished archeologist. The special effects are limited to a page of stickers, a pasted-in envelope and a few flimsy flaps; the illustrations mix shadowy pencil drawings with realistically drawn old photos, brochures, leather edges, stains and scraps of ephemera. The text, written with eye-glazing dullness and presented in alternating blocks of globby typewriter face and a nearly illegible italic script, is rife with vague claims—“ . . . there is evidence that a large number of the population could read and write, including a number of women”—unsupported by specific information, sources or even an index. Flashy but perfunctory. (Fictionalized nonfiction. 10-12)