What sorts of books inspired you as?a?child?
I devoured fiction and non-fiction alike, thanks to the public library. I?wish I?knew the title and author of a Marie Antoinette biography, written for children, which I?checked out many times. It made history feel alive ¨C and something that girls were part of, too. I?also loved Little Women (Jo, of course) and Frances Hodgson Burnett¡¯s A?Little Princess, long before I?knew anything about the British Empire.

Which book first attracted you to?ancient Egypt and?Tutankhamun?
In Treasured, I talk about one of them: a?1970s Reader¡¯s Digest volume called The?Last Two?Million Years. I?can still smell the glue and feel the pages. Our family copy was lost in a house fire, but my mother and brother gifted me a second-hand copy many years later.

What accounts, celebratory or more critical, can you recommend about Howard Carter and the ¡°heroic¡± age of?archaeology?
Elliott Colla¡¯s Conflicted Antiquities: Egyptology, Egyptomania, Egyptian Modernity opened my?eyes. Why hadn¡¯t I?learned anything about the political context of the Tutankhamun excavation in my Egyptology training ¨C including Howard Carter¡¯s failed legal case against the Egyptian government, which saw his British lawyer characterise Egyptians as?thieves? I?wouldn¡¯t necessarily recommend celebratory accounts of colonial-era archaeology, but C.??W.?Ceram¡¯s Gods, Graves and Scholars: The?Story of?Archaeology was an astonishing success. Ceram was the pen name of Kurt Wilhelm Marek, a?member of the Wehrmacht¡¯s propaganda corps during the Second World War who later settled in the?US.

Where can one find good accounts of the wider phenomenon of ¡°Egyptomania¡± in?art since the time of?Napoleon?
Books on ¡°Egyptomania¡± tend to divorce interest in ancient Egypt from wider sociopolitical contexts. Scott Trafton¡¯s Egypt Land: Race and Nineteenth-Century American Egyptomania is?fantastic ¨C and can I?plug my own book Egypt,?in Reaktion¡¯s Lost Civilizations series, which is aimed at a general audience? For Napoleon¡¯s expedition to?Egypt, try Juan Cole¡¯s Napoleon¡¯s Egypt: Invading the Middle East ¨C the?title says it?all ¨C and Nina Burleigh¡¯s Mirage: Napoleon¡¯s Scientists and the Unveiling of Egypt, which is?an engaging read.

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What is the last book you gave as?a?gift, and to?whom?
My Durham history colleague Rebecca Clifford¡¯s Survivors: Children¡¯s Lives after the Holocaust, shortlisted for the Wolfson History and Cundill History prizes ¨C to?someone important to?me.

What books do you have on your desk waiting to?be?read?
I¡¯m in the middle of Michael Rothberg¡¯s The?Implicated Subject: Beyond Victims and?Perpetrators. Next?up are Shawn Michelle Smith¡¯s Photographic Returns: Racial Justice and the Time of?Photography and Omnia el-Shakry¡¯s The?Arabic Freud: Psychoanalysis and Islam in?Modern Egypt. On my nightstand, for Italian practice, is Serena Dandini¡¯s La vasca del?F¨¹hrer (or?The?F¨¹hrer¡¯s Bathtub), a?novel about the photographer Lee?Miller.

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Christina Riggs is professor of the history of visual culture at Durham University. Her latest book is Treasured: How Tutankhamun Shaped a?Century (Atlantic).