Saint Theresa and Sleeping with Strangers, (2010) by Bahaa Abdel-Meguid. Translated by Chip Rossetti. The American University in Cairo Press, Cairo, New York

This summer's major exhibition at the Louvre in Paris provides an overview of the history of the Arabian Peninsula from prehistory to the advent of Islam, writes David Tresilian

No sooner did the French try and take over Egypt in 1798 than Mohamed Ali Pasha centred his empire in Cairo...