Best Selling Books by Italo Calvino

"These three stories, set during the summer of 1940, draw on Italo Calvino''s memories of his own adolescence during the Second World War, too young to be forced to fight in Mussolini''s army but old enough to be conscripted into the Italian youth brigades. The callow narrator of these tales observes the mounting unease of a city girding itself for war, the looting of an occupied French town, and nighttime revels during a blackout. Appearing here in its first English translation, Into the War is one of Calvino''s only works of autobiographical fiction. It offers both a glimpse of this writer''s extraordinary life and a distilled dram of his wry, ingenious literary voice."--from cover, page [4].

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

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

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.

Viscount Medardo is bisected by a Turkish cannonball on the plains of Bohemia; Baron Cosimo, at the age of twelve, retires to the trees for the rest of his days; Charlemagne''s knight, Agiluf, is an empty suit of armour. These three vivid images are the points of departure for Calvino''s classic triptych of moral tales, now published in one volume and all displaying the exuberant talent of a master storyteller.

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.

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.

A posthumously published collection of short stories that span the breadth of Italo Calvino''s career.

A posthumously published collection of thirty-six essays offering Italo Calvino''s invigorating and illuminating analysis of his most treasured literary classics.

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

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.

The author of Invisible Cities explores love and war "with enormous realist dignity" in this collection of " wondrous work from [his] early career" ( Kirkus, starred review). In this short story collection, one of Italy''s greatest storytellers explores the interior lives of characters just as their most cherished illusions of love are suddenly swept away. A soldier is reduced to quivering fear by the presence of a full-figured woman in his train compartment; a young clerk leaves a lady''s bed at dawn; a young woman is isolated from bathers on a beach by the loss of her bikini bottom. Confronted with a jarring moment of recognition, each of these characters discovers hidden truths beneath the surface of everyday life. This is the first edition in English to present these fifteen short stories together as Calvino originally envisioned them. It also includes two stories newly translated by Ann Goldstein.

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 is a collection of essays by the Cuban essayist and journalist. His work often seeks to confront the role of reader, author and character and question the form of each in order to explore new literary possibilities.

Enchanting stories about the evolution of the universe, with characters that are fashioned from mathematical formulae and cellular structures. “Naturally, we were all there, - old Qfwfq said, - where else could we have been? Nobody knew then that there could be space. Or time either: what use did we have for time, packed in there like sardines?” Translated by William Weaver. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book

"Rileggendo il tutto, m''accorgo che la storia di Palomar si può riassumere in due frasi: ''Un uomo si mette in marcia per raggiungere, passo a passo, la saggezza. Non è ancora arrivato''." La vertigine dell''uomo davanti agli inesorabili misteri dell''universo nei pensieri del taciturno signor Palomar, trasparente ''alter ego'' di Calvino. Uno dei romanzi più profondi della nostra letteratura.

A beautiful hardback edition of Calvino''s genre-switching masterwork. A book of surprise and adventure but you, the reader, are the hero. You go into a bookshop and buy If on a Winter''s Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino. You like it. But alas there is a printer''s error in your copy. You take it back to the shop and get a replacement. But the replacement seems to be a totally different story. You try to track down the original book you were reading but end up with a different narrative again. This remarkable novel leads you through many different books including a detective adventure, a romance, a satire, an erotic story, a diary and a quest. But the real hero is you, the reader. ''Breathtakingly inventive'' David Mitchell ''A writer of dizzying ambition and variety, each of his stories is a fresh adventure into the possibilities of fiction'' Guardian VINTAGE QUARTERBOUND CLASSICS: Bound to be beautiful

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

A collection of stories about time, space, and the evolution of the universe in which the author blends mathematics with poetic imagination. "Calvino does what very few writers can do: he describes imaginary worlds with the most extraordinary precision and beauty" (Gore Vidal, New York Review of Books). Translated by William Weaver. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book

The world of Calvino is a world of fable, but he uses its mechanisms to focus with unerring precision on human reality. Nature in these stories has a magical quality in the flight of a crow, the iridescent track of a snail, the sideways leap of a stray cat but the magic can encompass both enchantment and terror.

"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.

“Wonderful… Calvino’s prose is sparkling as ever, and he approaches ideas with wit and an open mind, always ready to challenge a stale point of view. This anthology will delight Calvino fans old and new.” —Publishers Weekly A rich collection of essays offering an extraordinary global view of Calvino’s approach to writing, reading, and interpreting literature. An extraordinary collection of essays, forewords, articles, and interviews, The Written World and the Unwritten World displays the remarkable intelligence and razor-sharp wit of prolific Italian writer Italo Calvino as he explores the meaning of literature in a rapidly changing world. From classics to contemporary literature, from tradition to the avant-garde, Calvino masterfully explores reading, writing, and translating through careful and illuminating discussion of the works of Bakhtin, Brecht, Cortázar, Thomas Mann, Octavio Paz, Georges Perec, Salman Rushdie, Gore Vidal, and more. Drawn from Mondo scritto e mondo non scritto (2002), Sulla fiaba (1988), and other uncollected essays, this volume of previously untranslated work—now rendered in English by acclaimed translator Ann Goldstein—is a major statement in literary criticism.

Chosen by The New York Times as one of its best books in the year of its original publication, this treasure trove of 200 lively Italian folktales has won a cherished place among fans of the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen. In this collection, Calvino combines a sensibility attuned to the fantastical with a singular writerly ability to capture the visions and dreams of a culture.

Twenty-six fantasy tales from the 19th century, tracing the genre from its roots in German romanticism to the ghost stories of Henry James. The editor, who prefaces each story, analyzes the resurgence of the fantastic in our day.

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.

''The promise of reading is enough'' Calvino''s masterpiece opens with a scene that''s reassuringly commonplace: apparently. Indeed, it''s taking place now. A reader goes into a bookshop to buy a book: not any book, but the latest Calvino, the book you are holding in your hands. Or is it? Are you the reader? Is this the book? Beware. All assumptions are dangerous on this most bewitching switch-back ride to the heart of storytelling.

Pin is a bawdy, adolescent cobbler''s assistant, both arrogant and insecure who - while the Second World War rages - sings songs and tells jokes to endear himself to the grown-ups of his town - particularly jokes about his sister, who they all know as the town''s ''mattress''. Among those his sister sleeps with is a German sailor, and Pin dares to steal his pistol, hiding it among the spiders'' nests in an act of rebellion that entangles him in the adults'' war.

The first complete English-language edition of one of Calvino''s important early short story collections Blending reality and illusion with elegance and precision, the stories in this collection--one of Calvino''s earliest--take place in a World War II-era and postwar Italy tinged with the visionary and fablelike qualities that would come to define this master storyteller''s later style. A trio of gluttonous burglars invade a pastry shop; two children trespass upon a forbidden garden; a wealthy family invites a rustic goatherd to lunch, only to mock him. In the title story, a compact masterpiece of shifting perspectives, a panicked soldier tries to keep his wits--and his life--when he faces off against a young partisan with a loaded rifle and miraculous aim. Throughout, Calvino delights in discovering hidden truths beneath the surface of everyday life. Stories from Last Comes the Raven have been published in translation, but the collection as a whole has never appeared in English. This volume, including several stories newly translated by Ann Goldstein, is an important addition to Calvino''s legacy.

"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

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.

A posthumously published collection of Italo Calvino''s autobiographical writings recounting his experiences in Italy''s antifascist resistance, paying homage to his influences, tracing the evolution of his literary style, and commenting wryly on his travels in the United States.

A young orphan who joins the Italian Resistance against the occupying forces from Germany during World War II discovers some spiders nests in which he hides a gun that he steals from a German soldier.