I am looking for reading recommendations in preparation for a Nile River cruise. When I was younger, ancient Egypt fascinated me so I have a general background but want to be more knowledgeable on the history of the sites I will be visiting. Basically I don’t want to waste an opportunity visiting a place that has always been on my bucket list! I am looking for suggestions that are more scholarly than Wikipedia but perhaps not so dry as a college text book.
Here are a list of sites I will most likely be visiting: Egyptian Museum of Antiquities, Step Pyramid of Djoser, Giza Plateau and pyramids, Temple of Karnak, Necropolis of Thebes, Valley of the Kings, Tomb of Seti I, Temple of Hatshepsut, Colossi of Memnon, Temple of Luxor, Temple of Khnum, Temple of Horus, Philae Temple, Abu Simbel
The "Complete" series is your best bet for information about the monuments you'll be visiting.
The Complete Valley of the Kings by Nicholas Reeves
The Complete Temples of Ancient Egypt by Richard Wilkinson
The Complete Pyramids by Mark Lehner
Another great resource is Exploring Ancient Egypt by Ian Shaw, which dedicates a chapter each to the major sites like Giza, Abydos, and Amarna.
The Cultural Atlas of Ancient Egypt by Baines and Malek is a bit dated but still useful for situating Egyptian monuments within their historical and social contexts.
There are quite a few good books on Egyptian history. I personally prefer Van de Mieroop's A History of Ancient Egypt, but it's admittedly a bit dry. For a livelier read, there's The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt by Toby Wilkinson and Temples, Tombs, and Hieroglyphs: A Popular History of Ancient Egypt by Barbara Mertz. The latter is available as a very good audiobook on Audible.