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Andrew Lang’s, “The Olive Fairy Book,” an anthology of Indian and Middle Eastern children’s fairy tales. On re-reading as an adult it becomes startlingly clear that they are all Sufi teaching stories. They set up moral problems and show ways to think, evaluate and discover solutions.
“The Thousand and One Nights of Scheherazade” - I now have a first edition of the unabridged version for adults – ribald, slapstick, ridiculous, farcical, terrifying, and full of good heart – the stories deal with false pretensions exposed. In the end, it is not surprising that grand vizier’s daughter succeeds in reforming her husband’s rule.
Gerald Durrell’s animal stories – the English is now painfully dated but in the writing, one can see the origins of David Attenborough’s documentaries on wildlife – and the beginnings of the movement to save threatened species from extinction.
Black’s Children’s Encyclopoedia – the data is not outdated! (Although it is now buried by the blizzard of the internet.)
