Yes!

Tut An Ahmon and all those other Egyptians, the kings, the pharaohs, the gods, the made-up goddesses (don't forget those)... it all worked. And in this book, they all came alive. Thanks. Very much recommended. And when I say that, it means something.

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Egyptians

Those Egyptians, man. They had some superstitions back then. I've heard some of the most famous myths and symbolisms before, but definitely not all of them. And there were some surprising things in there, like the guy who asked his brother to chop off his head because he didn't want people to recognize him. That was gruesome.

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Excellent as a Reference Book

There are 2 things to know about this book. Due to the amount of repetition, this book makes an excellent reference book, but it isn't ideal for people who want all the info as fast and briefly as possible. Also, the narration is imperfect.

Each chapter stands alone with the information it provides. Yes, a chapter focusing on Isis will have more details about her than other chapters, but another chapter focused on Horus will still go into some background about Isis when mentioning her.

This makes this book excellent as a reference because one can read a single chapter topic and know the basic information they need for context. It's also good for people who are forgetful or who read a chapter or two, then put the book away for days or weeks at a time. However, the repetition may be annoying to readers who expect the book to be more narrative and less reference-oriented.

The other thing to know is that the narration isn't what one is used to. The narrator has a great speaking voice and does a fine job of narration...except for the self-corrections and clicking his tongue, often when making a mistake. I don't know if this is the narrator's first book and he didn't understand listener expectations or if he has a tic and this is the cleaned up version after hundreds of retakes. Or perhaps it's some other situation, but a few times each hour there is a self-correction and/or tongue click. For example, the narrator might say, "When Pharaoh...click...When the pharaohs..."

If a person is intolerant of such things, this book isn't for them. While I wish the narration wasn't as it is, I don't know the circumstances and will reserve judgment on the man and hos narration, with simply a warning to those who, understandably, expect a perfectly narrated book.

The information contained within the book is excellent, easy to understand, and interesting. Even with the imperfect narration, I'm happy to have listened to it. I think with the search feature in Kindle, that version might be an excellent addition to this for those truly wishing to use this as a reference book.

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Wonderful Substance. Appaling Narration. No Edits.

I do not fault the narrator, unless he is responsible for editing his own "work". This audiobook is superb for content. It has a beautiful mix of mythology and relevant history that shows the evolution of ancient Egyptian mythology and religious doctrine.

The content itself is so rich. The errors, re-reading, re-pronunciations, stammering, tongue clicks are all clear to hear and the utter absence of ANY editing WHATSOEVER causes SERIOUS discredit to the otherwise wonderful material.

Another critical error is the glaringly obvious mispronunciation of Egyptian and Persian names of people and gods. There are standard pronunciations in academia and the narrator gets more wrong than correct. This wonderful book deserves to be read well, and not dragged through the mud with such an abysmal reading.

I would literally volunteer to read it myself and record it and edit it so that it would be free of errors, I care about the academic quality of the subject matter so much.

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Whoa

Glad I came across this. I haven't learned much about the Egyptian myths before. This is an excellent book that shows you symbolism, references, myths, beliefs, historical context, and more. Nothing wrong with it. Consider getting it!

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5 stars

Well, I guess you could see the 5 stars from the rating. This is because I was a constant listener (meaning: I didn't stop) of this book. It goes on and on for about 9 or 10 hours about so many different aspects of the ancient Egyptian culture and belief system. I thought it was worth every minute, so therefore, it was worth every penny.

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Too Long for Too Little Information

This book starts off well enough, then just keeps repeating itself for the most part. The narrator is good, but the editing could use some work. Whenever he misspeaks and starts again, the editor just left it in. I’d say all-in-all, this book has about 2 1/2-3 hours of unique information in a 10+ hour audiobook. Don’t waste your time.

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Too much repetition

While the subject matter is interesting, repeating the same story over and over gets tiresome. The book would only be 25% as long without all the repeated information. The narrator has several quirks like repeating himself when he loses his place and clicking whenever he says something wrong before correcting it.

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Interesting stories, terrible narration

First couple of chapters are like a list of facts and once it starts to get interesting the narrator keeps making mistakes, stumbling over words, re-reading sentences, and clicking his tongue or something when he catches himself mid-mistake... It's bad. The stories and matter-of-fact information still held my interest for a few more chapters but I'm 3 hours into a 9 hour book and I don't think I can take another 6 hours of this narrator.

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13 people found this helpful

Disappointed. False advertising.

I have been looking for a long time for a work on Egyptian mythology. This is not it.

This reads like a series of disjointed lectures on ancient Egyptian history and culture from early dynasties up early historical times. Large quantities of information are frequently repeated more or less verbatim in multiple chapters, which are organized in no discernible order. Mythology is referred to only in passing as it might bear on the history and culture.

I will probably finish because it is a mildly interesting series of lectures on a culture and history I don’t know much about, delivered as if by an interested TA reading lecture notes.

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2 people found this helpful