Percolating around my brain was a frequently mentioned book (or at least frequently mentioned in the articles and reviews I read) was a series of books by John Crawley known as Aegypt.

I just finished the first, called sometimes Aegypt or, as Crowley preferred, The Solitudes (also the name of a long poem that the main character, Pierce Moffett, is supposed to review).

I am not sure what to think of it. I enjoyed. I will read the next book in the series (I already am, in fact), but I also don’t feel a strong urgency to power through them. Hard to explain. Good, but not compelling, perhaps?

What I do like about it is that is a book of arcane and occult conspiracies (Rosicrucians, alchemy, etc) for people who enjoy reading about arcane and occult conspiracies but absolutely do not believe in them. Which pretty much describes me.

The book is sometimes called a fantasy, but it isn’t. Or least the first book wasn’t. It’s more like reading a book about someone writing the kinds of novels that Umberto Eco. That’s a little convoluted, but that’s okay. Aegypt is also about a historian writing a history, which is kind of like a novel written by someone else, which we also read parts of in Aegypt, as well as both the historian’s and novelist’s process and life during the writing of their respective books. Makes sense?