ONE THOUSAND & ONE NIGHTS BY HANAN AL-SHAYKH Also known as Arabian Nights, this clever retelling of the classic is a collection of the never-ending stories told by Shahrazad under sentence of death to King Shahrayar. Enraged to find out his wife’s orgies, King Shahrayar vowed to marry a virgin every night and kill her in the morning. To survive, his newest wife Shahrazad tells him a story each night, leaving the King in suspense when morning comes, prolonging her life for another day. THE NIGHT CIRCUS BY ERIN MORGENSTERN A book with dark, vivid descriptions to keep us hooked, it takes the reader directly into the strange and mysterious circus that appears without warning, only by night, and has a dreamlike quality of fairy tales, complete Erin Morgenstern with magic that is never quite explained. THE GREAT NIGHT BY CHRIS ADRIAN The book is a modern-day spin on Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream but the four lovers from the original play have been morphed into three, and the setting is a park in San Francisco, with a very terrifying Puck in the lead. THE SLEEPER & THE SPINDLE BY NEIL GAIMAN A grown-up fantasy like no other, Neil Gaiman’s amazing is both beautiful and very creepy. It’s modern take on Sleeping Beauty, with beautiful illustrations, an eerie atmosphere, and a fantastic twist. TINDER BY SALLY GARDNER This brilliant but gory picture book is actually fairytale about war. It is a retelling of the Hans Christian Andersen story “The Tinderbox”, and a reinterpretation of the myth of Prometheus. But no, it has nothing to do with online dating. Published in Daily Times, August 24th 2017.