Alexandria: The Last Nights of Cleopatra

Granta Publications, London, 2013. First edition, signed by the author. Book condition: fine and unread. Dust jacket: very good. Unclipped and with minor edge wear only. Finding himself in Alexandria in the winter of 2010, Peter Stothard, editor of the TLS, is forced to contemplate his past in circumstances he does not expect. The aftermath of a bombing and the onset of the Arab Spring complicate his plans to complete a long-delayed biography of Cleopatra. Minded by two guids whose motives are mysterious, he visits Alexandria's ancient sites and revisits places and people from his own life. In this extraordinary book, part memoir and part travel literature, written against the background of the fracturing police state of Egypt, a man and a woman from the aithor's schooldays are as present as the political minders of today.