50 !!
My 50th completed book of the year is another Riverside Literature Series number, 117-118, Stories from The Arabian Nights. No author or editor is listed, and my RLS catalogs don't name one, either. The "Introductory Note" credits a Dr. Jonathon Scott's translation (which I discover was from 1800) as the main source. Apparently this translation was altered for this edition, but one doesn't know how, or by whom. Bowdlerized, I presume.
In any case, this is one of the versions by which the Arabian Nights was introduced to American schoolchildren, and is therefore a major cultural link. It gives the Scheherazade frame story, and then twelve of the tales. Aladdin, Ali Baba and his 40 nogoodniks, and Sinbad the Sailor are all present, but several other interesting characters are in the less well-known stories.
Quite a number of modern Fantasy stories derive from these gems; and so do some SF works. This has set me to thinking...
The chief thing I learned is never to sail with Sinbad. You either drown, or get eaten.
CBsIP: Thirsty, Kristin Bair O'Keeffe
Quicksilver, Neal Stephenson (such a slog)
McSweeney's 15
In any case, this is one of the versions by which the Arabian Nights was introduced to American schoolchildren, and is therefore a major cultural link. It gives the Scheherazade frame story, and then twelve of the tales. Aladdin, Ali Baba and his 40 nogoodniks, and Sinbad the Sailor are all present, but several other interesting characters are in the less well-known stories.
Quite a number of modern Fantasy stories derive from these gems; and so do some SF works. This has set me to thinking...
The chief thing I learned is never to sail with Sinbad. You either drown, or get eaten.
CBsIP: Thirsty, Kristin Bair O'Keeffe
Quicksilver, Neal Stephenson (such a slog)
McSweeney's 15