1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die

  • Gulliver's Travels
  • Roxana
  • Moll Flanders
  • Love In Excess
  • Robinson Crusoe
  • A Tale of a Tub
  • Oroonoko
  • The Princess of Cleves

Saturday, September 4, 2010

6 The Thousand and One Nights by Anonymous

I remember reading this wonderful collection of Arabic stories in high school.  The local public library had the complete set in hard cover in several volumes and I think it was Richard Burton's translation, but can't remember.  And of course many of the stories, like Aladdin and the Lamp, have been popularised for children in picture books.

There were several versions available for download on the Kindle, but frustratingly the most readable version was incomplete and some of the other versions were very poorly edited, so in the end I didn't re-read all ten volumes.

The stories themselves vary immensely, from short anecdotes to love stories to long and complicated histories and stories within stories.  They are, on the whole, entertaining in their own right; and also give a useful insight into Middle Eastern culture.

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