Muhsin Mahdi (1926–2007)

This is as good as it gets. I don't know Arabic so there's no way I can judge the accuracy of the translation -- all I know is how it reads, and it reads superbly. I'd rather not get into any "oh, but there's only 271 nights here, what the --" patter. I have the newer, bigger Penguin translation on my shelves too & it presumably uses the (much!) longer Egyptian 'version' (version is the wrong word but I can't think of the right one at the moment) ... but I doubt it could be, well, better than this. What's here is simply the rapture of tales, tales, tales ... and it's a volume that makes it eminently clear why people get obsessed with this thing. I'm a bit obsessed with it, right now.… (meer)