BEYOND THE PYRAMIDS is a delightfully wry chronicle of travels through a country of incongruity - an Egypt encompassing a diversity of cultural influences which often belies its image of 'archaeological theme park'.

With an acute eye for the unusual, the interesting or the plain absurd, Douglas Kennedy takes us on a continually surprising tour beyond the pyramids, to a place where Bedouin watch American television in an oasis; where monks in the desert are computer-literate; and where an entire community of Cairo's poor have set up home in a cemetary.

'BEYOND THE PYRAMIDS seems to me to have the satisfying insights of a Paul Theroux' Maeve Binchy