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Karen Essex is an award-winning journalist, a screenwriter, and the coauthor of a biography about cult icon Bettie Page. A former executive in the film industry, she holds an M.F.A. in writing from Goddard College. She was born in New Orleans and lives in Los Angeles. Kleopatra was her first novel. Pharaoh, the sequel to Kleopatra, will be published by Warner Books in August. Her official website is http://www.karenessex.com.
Kleopatra
The cherished daughter of an Egyptian pharaoh, she fought the resentments of a subjugated people and the treachery of her own siblings. Defending her throne from hostile forces on every side, she endured exile, found love, and raised a mercenary army against her enemies...all before she was twenty years old. She was Kleopatra. And this is her untold story.
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Karen Essex's Summer Reading List
The Cairo Trilogy
by Naguib Mafouz
I like big, thick, lush summer reading projects that will keep me in a vivid trance from Memorial Day to Labor Day. Here are some of my favorites. The Cairo Trilogy by Naguib Mafouz, beginning with Palace Walk. This masterpiece by the Egyptian writer chronicles the evolution of a family in Cairo, set against the political complexities of colonial Egypt.
The Alexandria Quartet
by Lawrence Durrell
In some of the most lyrical and poetic language ever written, Durrell follows the lives of several fascinating ex-patriots in the exotic and decadent Alexandria of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. At once erotic, psychological, and transcendent.
I, Claudius and Claudius the God
by Robert Graves
The juicy story of the power plays and sexual antics of Rome's emperors from Augustus to Claudius, based mostly on the gossipy histories of Suetonius. You cannot put these books down, but don't believe everything you read about Rome's wicked empresses.
Remembrance of Things Past
by Marcel Proust
Not for the feint-hearted, this seven volume novel plumbs the depths of human psychology and French society like no other ever written. This is my personal project this summer!
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