Red Nile: A Biography of the World’s Greatest River

The longest river in the world, the Nile, is utterly predictable, according to British journalist and novelist Twigger (Dr. Ragab’s Universal Language): “For all its floods and famines and small tantrums, this is a river you can rely on.” Twigger, in turgid, silty prose reminiscent of the river’s flow, winds his way from the Lower Nile to its sources: the White Nile, which rises from a still-undetermined source in Rwanda, and the Blue Nile, which rises near Lake Tana in Ethiopia. Yet, the story of the Nile is the story of its inhabitants, and Twigger offers tales of the men, women, and animals that helped create the legendary character of the Nile. He skims along the river, delivering stories set on its fertile banks: the death of philosopher Hypatia of Alexandria at the hands of Peter the Bigot; Shajarat al-Durr, the first and only Sultana of Egypt; Ibn al-Nafis, the physician who discovered, perhaps in the ebb and flow of the Nile, a model for human circulation 400 years before William Harvey; Napoleon’s defeat of the Egyptians at Cairo; Gustave Flaubert’s sexual enchantment with Egypt; and the building of the Aswan Dam. Twigger’s history intrigues, but like his subject, regularly overflows. Maps & illus. (Oct.)