Out of Egypt

I just finished this book by Andre Aciman. It was great!!!

Funny how you find good books sometimes. I had some credit at a used bookstore and could not find anything I really wanted, so settled for this book. As it turns out, I could not have done better if they had had something on my list.

This book is the memoir of a Jewish family that lived in Egypt from about 1905-1965. The author is a member of this family. This was a family of many real characters. Their lives were very interesting even when doing "everyday" things. Of course the setting, Alexandria, Egypt, did have something to do with that I guess.

But in addition to that, this family was sort of an ex-patriot family living among other ethnic really ex-patriot groups - a very odd status in many ways. They all lived in Egypt in its transition years from colony to Nasser/independence. The Nasser Egyptian goverment did not treat these people that well, but then they were not all that "nice" about the Egyptians. They were decent ot their Egyptian servants I guess, but did seem to hold others in contempt in many ways.

An inside view of an unusual situation and time. An excellent read. Give it a try. It has been out over 10 years, but I bet it can still be found pretty easily.