FLY ON THE WALL

A superficial glance at Egyptian society in the time of Rameses II, this layers breezy, hand-written factoids (“Egyptian farmers grow barley and a sort of wheat for food, and flax to make linen clothes.”) along with bits of plant or animal matter and swatches of papyrus attached with modern straight pins over sketchy, generic watercolor cartoons. A perfunctory plotline featuring a scribe and his family rising in the morning, going to work, watching a funeral—all of which weakly link the topical spreads, and an index/glossary adds a few additional details. Definitely an also-ran, far back in the pack behind conventional nonfiction, or even such fact/fiction mixes as Richard Platt’s Egyptian Diary: The Journal of Nakht (2005). (Nonfiction. 9-11)