If On A Winter's Night A Traveler
"You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel...Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every other thought. Let the world around you fade." —from If On A Winter's Night a Traveler Italo Calvino's stunning classic imagines a novel capable of endless possibilities in an intricately crafted, spellbinding story about writing and reading. If on a Winter's Night a Traveler is a feat of striking ingenuity and intelligence, exploring how our reading choices can shape and transform our lives. Originally published in 1979, Italo Calvino's singular novel crafted a postmodern narrative like never seen before—offering not one novel but ten, each with a different plot, style, ambience, and author, and each interrupted at a moment of suspense. Together, the stories form a labyrinth of literature known and unknown, alive and extinct, through which two readers pursue the story lines that intrigue them and try to read each other. Deeply profound and surprisingly romantic, this classic is a beautiful meditation on the transformative power of reading and the ways we make meaning in our lives. "Calvino is a wizard...There is no halting [this book's] metamorphoses." —New York Times Review of Books
The Complete Cosmicomics
The complete collection of “nimble and often hilarious” short stories exploring the cosmos by the acclaimed author of Invisible Cities (Colin Dwyer, NPR). Italo Calvino’s beloved cosmicomics cross planets and traverse galaxies, speed up time or slow it down to the particles of an instant. Through the eyes of a “cosmic know-it-all” with the unpronounceable name of Qfwfq, Calvino explores natural phenomena and tells the story of the origins of the universe. Relating complex scientific and mathematical concepts to our everyday world, they are an indelible and delightful literary achievement. Originally published in Italian in three separate volumes—including the Asti d’Appello Prize-winning first volume, Cosmicomics—these thirty-four dazzling stories are collected here in one definitive English-language anthology. “Trying to describe such a diverse and entertaining mix, I have to admit, just as Calvino does so often, that my words fail here, too. There’s no way I—or anyone, really—can muster enough of them to quite capture the magic of these stories . . . Read this book, please.” —Colin Dwyer, NPR
Cosmicomics
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
The Outlaw Album
Twelve timeless Ozarkian tales of those on the fringes of society, by a "stunningly original" American master (Associated Press). Daniel Woodrell is able to lend uncanny logic to harsh, even criminal behavior in this wrenching collection of stories. Desperation-both material and psychological -- motivates his characters. A husband cruelly avenges the killing of his wife's pet; an injured rapist is cared for by a young girl, until she reaches her breaking point; a disturbed veteran of Iraq is murdered for his erratic behavior; an outsider's house is set on fire by an angry neighbor. There is also the tenderness and loyalty of the vulnerable in these stories -- between spouses, parents and children, siblings, and comrades in arms-which brings the troubled, sorely tested cast of characters to vivid, relatable life. And, as ever, "the music coming from Woodrell's banjo cannot be confused with the sounds of any other writer"-Donald Harington, Atlanta Journal Constitution "Twelve timeless Ozarkian tales of those on the fringes of society, by a "stunningly original"-Associated Press, American master.
The Hundred Brothers
With a New Introduction by Jonathan Franzen There's Rob, Bob, Tom, Paul, Ralph, and Noah; Nick, Dennis, Bertram, Russell, and Virgil. The doctor, the documentary filmmaker, and the sculptor in burning steal; the eldest, the youngest, and the celebrated "perfect" brother, Benedict. In Donald Antrim's mordantly funny novel The Hundred Brothers, our narrator and his colossal fraternity of ninety-eight brothers (one couldn't make it) have assembled in the crumbling library of their family's estate for a little sinister fun. Executed with the invention and intelligence of Barthelme and Pynchon, Antrim's taxonomy of male specimens is in equal proportions disturbing and absurdly hilarious.
