Oh silly me. To think what I actually expected from a book with that title was in fact some Scheherazade tales and maybe some more of her tales. But no, this volume contains only a select few stories inexplicably coupled up with Johnson's own takes on the classics updated for the modern world. The thing is wherein the original stories are timeless morality driven charmingly exotic species...Johnson's versions are puerile jejune imitations of varied but invariably low quality (and decidedly lacking in magic real or otherwise) and side by side comparison only makes them all the paler for it. It's as if he was concerned the readers might not understand the originals without his assistance. And you'd think that an afterword he includes after every story would do the trick rife with banal insights as they are, but no, apparently not. So either the author's delusional enough to think his stories measure up or thinks so lowly of his audience that he needs to over explain and simplify to this extent. Either way, what an ego. Either way, outside of the actual Arabian Nights stories, this book doesn't have much to offer, but at least it's a pretty quick read. Thanks Netgalley.