Egypt Books, Movies, & Documentaries

Yesterday I discussed the many online resources to help plan a trip to Egypt. Another important part of my planning process is reading books and watching shows on the place I’m traveling to. Here are some of the other resources I used in planning a trip to Egypt.

Books

Travel Guides:

I actually had started planning a trip to Egypt back in 2009. So many of by guidebooks I have are older. I actually found the older guidebooks (pre 2011) to be more detailed and many more options. After 2011, when tourism dropped it seemed the guidebook publishers pulled funding and effort towards newer versions of guidebooks. In fact, I also checked numerous local book-stores and many don’t even bother stocking guides to Egypt.

National Geographic Traveler Egypt 2009 – This is one of my favorite guides, with full color photos and lots of great detail.
I have the 2008 and 2015 version of the Lonely Planet guidebooks. I recommend the older ones as they seem to be more detailed and explain a lot more. The 2015 seemed smaller and less researched than the 2008 version.
Eyewitness Travel Egypt 2013 is a good simplistic book, if you want nice cutaway drawings of the sites.

Informational:

A guide to the Egyptian Museum
Egyptian Arabic Phrasebook & Dictionary
The Traveler’s Key to Ancient Egypt – A nice guide, but a little on the “new age” on some topics.
A Guide to the Tombs and Temples of Ancient Luxor: Thebes in Egypt – This is a in-depth look at the Luxor area and the people who built the monuments. It is a bit dry.
Pocket Guide to Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs – While this is a night short guide, it is not “pocket sized” so its not worth getting if you thought you’d bring it out site seeing.
Inside the Egyptian Museum with Zahi Hawass – I got to meet (and get my edition signed by) Zahi Hawass. This huge coffee-table book has amazing photos of the museum.

For Fun:

My favorite mysteries have also been set in Egypt, Agatha Christie’s Death Come As the End & Death on the Nile. Also many mystery books by Elizabeth Peters is also set in Egypt. Or wanting something a little different? Anne Rice has some Egyptian characters in some of her novels. I also remember enjoying Time Cat as a child. Another childhood favorite was Tales of Ancient Egypt by Roger Lancelyn Green, I loved myths and fables and this was a great read.