Whatever Gets You Through the Night: A Story of Sheherezade and the Arabian Entertainments (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780691143378)

An irreverent and deeply funny retelling of the Arabian Nights

"I fear each passing night that I will not receive my maintenance dose of suspense, and then I will cease to exist."--Whatever Gets You through the Night

Whatever Gets You through the Night is an irreverent and deeply funny retelling of the Arabian Nights and a wildly inspired exploration of the timeless art of storytelling. Award-winning writer Andrei Codrescu reimagines how Sheherezade saved Baghdad's virgins and her own life through a heroic feat of storytelling--one that kept the Persian king Sharyar hanging in agonizing narrative and erotic suspense for 1001 nights. For Sheherezade, the end of either suspense or curiosity means death, but Codrescu keeps both alive in this entertaining tale of how she learned to hold a king in thrall, setting with her endless invention an unsurpassable example for all storytellers across the ages. Liberated and mischievous, Codrescu's Sheherezade is as charming as she is shrewd--and so is the story Codrescu tells.

Author: Andrei Codrescu
ISBN-10: 0691143374
ISBN-13: 9780691143378
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Language: English
Published: 05/15/2011
Pages: 200
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.15lbs
Size: 9.02h x 7.88w x 0.80d

Review Citation(s):
Library Journal 05/15/2011 pg. 85
Publishers Weekly 04/25/2011
Foreword 04/29/2011