Book club · the books that made Nout and Kemet grow

Some books wait for their moment. This one slept on my shelf for a few years before I opened it, just before leaving for Egypt. I had no idea it was about to whisper a collection to me.

Par les chemins des Indes, Katia Astafieff (Paulsen, 2025, in French) 
In 1828, Victor Jacquemont, a young botanist from Paris, set off for India on behalf of the Muséum d'histoire naturelle. He observed, collected, drew, and wrote letters full of curiosity. He died in Bombay in 1832, aged thirty-one. Nearly two hundred years later, Katia Astafieff , a biologist and traveller, retraced his route.

She follows in the footsteps of this botanist in India, to exactly the villages where he went, and she draws the parallel between his letters and what she sees today. It's fascinating.

What drew me in were the plants. "She gives the Latin names of the plants, so every time I would go and check what they looked like." And this detail: Jacquemont drew too. For him as for me, painting a plant starts with learning to look at it. "I said to myself: but I love plants. I have to satisfy that desire." Back from Egypt, I gathered my research under one title:"Sacred uses of plants".

Kemet was on its way.

Dieux, génies et démons en Égypte ancienne (Somogy éditions d'art)
The book that brought me closer to Nout: the goddess arched over the world, hands and feet on the ground, and that possible link with the Milky Way. A few weeks later, I found her again on the ceiling of the tomb of Ramesses VI.

The other travel companions

Joann Fletcher, Le Livre de la sagesse égyptienne, read in its French edition (Gründ)
Émile Prisse d' Avennes, Egyptian Art (Taschen), for its complete plates
The novels of Christian Jacq, which made me dream of Memphis long before I saw it. 

Brescia