4 of 7 books I love. My Coptic wedding Bible, bequeathed me on converting and marrying in St. Mary’s Coptic Church on Zamalek by my Abuna Yousef. I always tell the story of Yousef anointing and baptising me in the church’s crypt. During a perfunctory catechism class we got to like each other and I told him he looked like a guy I know back in New York.
“I used to live in New York,” he said.
You know who Allen Ginsberg is? I wanted to know.  Duncan Hannah recounts the first time we met Allen in his recent memoir, 20th Century Boy (NYC: Knopf, 2018), in a chapter called An Evening With Allen Ginsberg.  We were 16 or 17, working at the Guthrie Theater, and he told Duncan he was beautiful.  Dunc’ believed him.
“Allen! I went to Brooklyn College with Allen!” Yousef hipped me
Next thing I know I’m lying on my back over the baptismal fount looking up into that beard. I took it as a blessing.
“Thank God, it isn’t Allen.”  I’d met him again, at 18, hitchhiking on Shattuck Ave from Berkeley to San Francisco.  After introducing me to everybody at City Lights and several poets of great merit, he plied me with reefer and drinks and told me I was beautiful.  I remained skeptical.
As for the rest of the marriage, see equal parts of: Durrell, Lawrence. The Alexandria Quartet ; Mahfouz, Nagib. The Cairo Trilogy and Ambler, Eric. Coffin for Dimitros. Then just imagine.