Stories of court life, money, torture, swindles, sex, dreams and disease, combine the comic with the sinister and bizarre. Always entertaining, and told with wit and eloquence, the result is a wonderful first-person account of everyday life in medieval Baghdad and its surroundings. This two volume set includes translations of sections of Tankukhi's manuscript that only came to light at a later date and which are both little known and rare. This unique set contains a new introduction by one of the leading scholars of the Middle East, Robert Irwin.

Abu Ali al-Muhassin ibn Ali al-Tanukhi, known as al-Tanukhi (939-94), was a tenth century judge and litterateur. Born in Basra, the intellectual capital of the Arab world at that time, he came from an influential family of landowners and judges. The Table Talk of a Mesoptamian Judge is the translation of one of his two great surviving works: Nishwar al-Muhadara wa-Akhbar al-Mudhakara (Cream of Coversation and Reminiscences)."Robert Irwin taught Medieval History at the University of St Andrews and has lectured on Arabic and Middle Eastern History at the universities of London, Cambridge and Oxford. He is Middle East Editor for the Times Literary Supplement. His books include Mamluks and Crusaders (2010) and For Lust of Knowing: the Orientalists and their Enemies (2006). He is editor of The New Cambridge History of Islam Vol.4: Islamic Cultures and Societies to the End of the Eighteenth Century (2010).