Basically, an adequate book for beginners, but nothing original or new. Ms. Lesko takes other scholars' ideas, most notably Dr. Jan Assman and waters them down for popular consumption. This is acceptable for an amateur egyptologist like Ms. Lesko to do as long as the original work is cited. Fortunately, she uses good judgement in choosing scholarly works that are exceptional. Serious students of Egyptology, however, should go right to the source and forego this book.