100 Book in 2012: The Arabian Nights
“Scheherazade avoided her fate because she knew how to wield the weapon of suspense - the only literary tool that has any effect upon tyrants and savages. Great novelist though she was, - exquisite in her descriptions, tolerant in her judgements, ingenious in her incidents, advanced in her morality, vivid in her delineations of character, expert in her knowledge of three Oriental capitals - it was yet on none of these gifts that she relied when trying to save her life from her intolerable husband. They were but incidental. She only survived because she managed to keep the king wondering what would happen next.” - from E. M. Forster’s Aspects of the Novel.
