It's difficult to rate a book written so long ago because on the one hand it's a very important cultural and religious document, and on the other hand it's not very entertaining. Overall I am glad I read it so that I have a passing knowledge of the most important stories ("Sinbad," "Alladin" and "Ali Baba") and also so that I don't have to worry about reading it ever again.

The most interesting part of the book for me was the insights it gave into ancient Islamic morality, which don't appear to differ all that much from ancient Jewish or Christian morality (indeed this book in parts reminds me strongly of the Bible); killing is bad unless you're killing a bad person, wealth is good and it doesn't really matter how you get it, women are property, etc. Probably most interesting was the concept of riches, where someone like Aladdin starts out as an actual bad person but then is miraculously transformed into our hero just by the acquisition of money. It's arguably the most magical thing that occurs in the entire book.

I don't think I need waste much more analysis here. . . many people much more intelligent than I have written thousands of pages of critiques that will be much better than anything I have to say.

I will say one last thing concerning Sinbad: wouldn't his countrymen at some point have stopped getting on a boat with this guy? I don't know, sometime after the 2nd or 3rd voyage where everyone dies except him?

Disclaimer: I read the 214-pg., 6-story, abridged "Favorite Tales from the Arabian Nights' Entertainments" translated by Richard Burton, so I didn't have the enveloping story about the King's wife prolonging execution. I also don't feel like I really needed it at all and have no desire to ever search out a longer version. ( )