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An Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead is a beautifully illustrated scholarly edition of an early-15th-century BCE funerary papyrus, held by the Brooklyn Museum, that belonged to a gold-worker named Sobekmose. Because the papyrus was discovered at Saqqara near Memphis, it is of particular interest as an example of the Lower Egyptian book of the dead tradition instead of the more familiar Theban tradition. The book consists of two parts: the first part, O'Rourke's lucid translation of Sobekmose's version of the Book of the Dead, with each spell introduced by a head note explaining its significance and accompanied by critical notes on the translation; the second part, a complete color reproduction of the papyrus itself, an inclusion that makes the text valuable for Egyptologists. What distinguishes this work from its principal rival, R. O. Faulkner's translation, The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, ed. by Carol Andrews (1990), is its wealth of introductory material concerning Egyptian mortuary religion and the nature, history, and function of Book of the Dead texts and their relation to other funerary books. This scholarly but accessible rendering is appropriate for any person interested in Egyptian history.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates and above.

Like Latin, Hebrew thrived for centuries as a sacred literary language, rarely used for everyday speech, but unlike Latin, Hebrew is now the primary language of millions. Glinert (Dartmouth) reviews Hebrew literature and language from its earliest appearance to the 21st century. Writing in novel-like prose, the author highlights dramatic tensions between tradition and modernity, religion and secularism, and the poetic and the pragmatic, including frequent scenes in which Hebrew is saved from near-certain oblivion. Heroes of the narrative include the Bible and Mishnah, the Masoretes and Maimonides's Mishneh Torah, Christian Hebraists such as Reuchlin, Luther, the committee charged with creating the King James Bible, even Yiddish writer Mendele Mocher Sforim. Hebrew secular newspapers, Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav's Hasidic stories, modern verse, and Eliezer Ben-Yehuda's decision to speak only Hebrew propelled the language to its current dominant position, but Glinert also observes that the age of nationalism saw many other standard national languages emerge from a welter of spoken dialects. Glinert's many translations from the Hebrew sparkle, at times matching the meter and rhyme of the original. This book, the first in a generation to tell this story, is valuable for its panache as well as its research and thoughtfulness.Summing Up: Essential. Lower- and upper-division undergraduates; researchers, faculty, and professionals; general readers.