As this is an homage to The Thousand and One Nights, perhaps I would have been better off if I'd read that first. However, even without that background I was prepared for a rabbit hole of stories, and that's exactly what I got. One story leads into another leads into another, and they all have morals to them or are somehow instructive. I do admire Shah's inventiveness, because it can't be easy to come up with stories that meet all the requirements - interlocking/overlapping, morals, and last but definitely not least, entertainment value.

Although I usually like to read collections of short stories with time between each story, I think this one would have been better enjoyed in larger doses, perhaps even read over the course of just a couple of days. When I would go longer between stories, I'd often have forgotten how I'd arrived at the beginning of the story I was ready to read. Alternatively, I think this would be a great one to read out loud.

Recommended for: people who like parables and fables, fans of anthropomorphic animals.

Quote: "He came to the conclusion that humans confused the content with the container. They would gorge themselves on great plates of inferior food, imagining it to be delicious because there was simply so much of it." ( )