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Thursday, October 30, 2008

Review: 3 Books by Italo Calvino

After I commented on Shelf Love's review of If on a winter's night a traveler by Italo Calvino that I loved Calvino's work, Jenny asked me for a recommendation of another Calvino book to read.

I commented that, Invisible Cities is my favorite Calvino book (I think because I am an architect). Outwardly, Invisible Cities is the story of Marco Polo telling Kublai Khan about all the cities he’s visited. Of course, what’s its really about is the nature of cities and imagination and human nature. It is beautiful.


I also commented that I enjoyed Marcovaldo: Seasons in the City, which is a short story collection. Normally, I don’t love short stories, but maybe because I think even Calvino’s novels are fairly episodic, he just does them so well. From this book, my favorite story is “Moon and GNAC”, which I think is a perfect gem of a story.



Another interesting Calvino book (that I didn't mention on Shelf Love) is Cosmicomics, another short story collection. The collection is unified around the theme of science, though its fantastical science, and most of the stories have the same narrator, Qfwfq. The book is a little strange, but still wonderful.

There are other wonderful Calvino books, but I will stop there. If you've read any of Calvino's books, let me know which ones you'd recommend. And if you read any of these, let me know what you think!

Buy Invisible Cities on Amazon.
Buy Marcovaldo: Seasons in the City on Amazon.
Buy
Cosmicomics on Amazon.

1 comment:

  1. I've only read If on a winter's night... and Invisible cities. I've got Cosmicomics on my TBR shelf though, so am glad to hear it's good and hope I think the same when I get to it.

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