Most Popular Books by Italo Calvino

Italo Calvino''s classic, multifaceted novel about writing and readers.

One of the world''s best storytellers, Italo Calvino (Invisible Cities) pinpoints for future generations the universal values for literature. Here are his works, methods, intentions, and hopes.

"Cosimo di Rondó, a young Italian nobleman of the eighteenth century, rebels against his parents by climbing into the trees and remaining there for the rest of his life. He adapts efficiently to an existence in the forest canopy he hunts, sows crops, plays games with earth-bound friends, fights forest fires, solves engineering problems, and even manages to have love affairs. From his perch in the trees, Cosimo sees the Age of Enlightenment pass by and a new century dawn. Long considered one of Calvino''s finest works, The baron in the trees exemplifies this brilliant writer''s gift for fantasy."--Page [4] of cover.

One of the New York Times''s Ten Best Books of the Year: These traditional stories of Italy, retold by a literary master, are "a treasure" ( Los Angeles Times). Filled with kings and peasants, saints and ogres—as well as some quite extraordinary plants and animals—these two hundred tales bring to life Italy''s folklore, sometimes with earthy humor, sometimes with noble mystery, and sometimes with the playfulness of sheer nonsense. Selected and retold by one of the country''s greatest literary icons, "this collection stands with the finest folktale collections anywhere" ( The New York Times Book Review). "For readers of any age . . . A masterwork." — The Wall Street Journal "A magic book, and a classic to boot." — Time

Published for the first time in English, a final collection of essays by the renowned fabulist writer tours the visual world through explorations of subjects ranging from cuneiform and antique maps to Mexican temples and Japanese gardens.

This collection of essays by the acclaimed author of Cosmicomics offers a fascinating, personal journey through some of literature''s greatest works. Classics, according to Italo Calvino, are not only works of enduring cultural value, but also personal touchstones. They are the books we are always rereading in order to understand our world and ourselves. Here, Calvino introduces more than thirty works from his own ideal library in essays of warmth, humor, and striking insight. He discusses great authors ranging from Homer to Jorge Luis Borges, and from Charles Dickens to the Persian folklorist Nezami. Whether tracing the links between Ovid''s Metamorphoses and Alain Robbe-Grillet''s objectivity, discovering the origins of science fiction in the writings of Cyrano de Bergerac, or convincing us that the Italian novelist Carlo Emilio Gadda''s works are like artichokes, Calvino offers a new perspective on beloved favorites and introduces us to hidden gems. "This book serves as a welcome reminder that the great works are great because they can mean so much to readers, and Calvino is a most knowledgeable guide to all the best destinations."— San Francisco Chronicle

When a nobleman is split in two, his separate halves pursue different adventures in a fantastically macabre tale by the author of Invisible Cities. It is the seventeenth century, and the Viscount Medardo of Terralba must go into battle against the Turks. But the inexperienced warrior is soon bisected lengthwise by a cannonball. Through a miracle of stitching, one half of him survives, returning to his feudal estate to lead a lavishly evil life. But soon his other, virtuous half appears—also very much alive. When the two halves become rivals for the love of the same woman, there''s no telling the lengths each will go to in order to win. Now available in an independent volume for the first time, this deliciously bizarre novella of is Calvino at his most devious and winning.

From one of modern literature’s most captivating and elusive masters comes a posthumous volume of thoughtful, elegant, and quick-witted autobiographical writings, all previously unpublished in English. Here is Italo Calvino paying homage to his literary influences and tracing the evolution of his signature style. Here are his reminiscences of Italy’s antifascist resistance and the frenzy of politics and ideas of the postwar era. The longest and most delightfully revealing section of the book is Calvino’s diary of his travels in the United States in 1959 and 1960, which show him marveling at color TV, wrinkling his nose at the Beats, and reeling at the outpouring of racial hatred attending a civil rights demonstration in Alabama. Overflowing with insight and amusement, Hermit in Paris is an invaluable addition to the Calvino legacy.

In these widely praised essays, Calvino reflects on literature as process, the great narrative game in the course of which writer and reader are challenged to understand the world. Calvino himself made the selection of pieces to be included in this volume. Translated by Patrick Creagh. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book

This is the first collection in English of the extraordinary letters of one of the great writers of the twentieth century. Italy''s most important postwar novelist, Italo Calvino (1923-1985) achieved worldwide fame with such books as Cosmicomics, Invisible Cities, and If on a winter''s night a traveler. But he was also an influential literary critic, an important literary editor, and a masterful letter writer whose correspondents included Umberto Eco, Primo Levi, Gore Vidal, Leonardo Sciascia, Natalia Ginzburg, Michelangelo Antonioni, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Luciano Berio.

In Kublai Khan''s garden, at sunset, the young Marco Polo diverts the aged emperor from his obsession with the impending end of his empire with tales of countless cities past, present, and future.

"A group of travellers chance to meet, first in a castle, then a tavern. Their powers of speech are magically taken from them and instead they have only tarot cards with which to tell their tales. What follows is an exquisite interlinking of narratives, and a fantastic, surreal, and chaotic history of all human consciousness."--Goodreads

A collection of five autobiographical essays by one of the masters of Italian literature In these five elegant autobiographical meditations Italo Calvino delves into his past, remembering awkward childhood walks with his father, a lifelong obsession with the cinema and fighting in the Italian Resistance against the Fascists. He also muses on the social contracts, language and sensations associated with emptying the kitchen rubbish and the shape he would, if asked, consider the world. These reflections on the nature of memory itself are engaging, witty, and lit through with Calvino''s alchemical brilliance. Translated from the Italian by Tim Parks

Italo Calvino''s last fictional work is a witty, elegant, fantastic rendering of the ultimate observer, whose name, Mr. Palomar, deliberately evokes the famous telescope. "Beautiful, nimble, solitary feats of imagination" (The New York Times Book Review). Calvino is the acclaimed author of Difficult Loves and Invisible Cities.

In a collection of stories written during the 1940s and 1950s, the author captures moments of revelation in the lives of ordinary people, instants blending recognition and alarm as deceptions and illusions are laid bare.

One of Italy''s greatest and most popular writers offers three witty, fantastical stories, each dominated by one of three senses--taste, hearing, or smell.

Numbers in the Dark is a collection of short stories covering the length of Italo Calvino''s extraordinary writing career, from when he was a teenager to shortly before his death. They include witty allegories and wise fables; a town where everything has been forbidden apart from the game of tip-cat; a pitiable tribe watching the flight paths of guided missiles from outside their mud huts; a computer programmer considering the possible sequence of a series of brutal acts; and dialogues with Henry Ford, a Neanderthal and the gloomy, overthrown Montezuma ... Italo Calvino, one of Italy''s finest postwar writers, has delighted readers around the world with his deceptively simple, fable-like stories. Calvino was born in Cuba in 1923 and raised in San Remo, Italy; he fought for the Italian Resistance from 1943-45. His major works include Cosmicomics (1968), Invisible Cities (1972), and If on a winter''s night a traveler (1979). He died in Siena in1985, of a brain hemorrhage.

Italo Calvino''s debut novel, first published in 1947, tells the story of Pin, a cobbler''s apprentice in a town on the Ligurian coast during World War II. He lives with his sister, a prostitute, and spends as much time as he can at the lowlife bar where he amuses the grownups. When his friends dare him to steal a pistol from a Nazi soldier, Pin sets off on a series of picaresque adventures with a band of partisans. Calvino''s portrayal of this band, seen through the eyes of the child, is not only a revealing commentary on the Italian Resistance, but also an insightful coming-of-age story. The Path to the Nest of Spiders is a bold, adventurous first novel, animated by the formidable imagination that was to make Italo Calvino one of the most respected writers of the second half of this century.