Reddit mentions of Cosmicomics

There was just a post over in /r/books about Italo Calvino's SS collection Cosmicomics. I loved his historical fantasy Invisible Cities.

Italo Calvino has a short story about exactly this situation. I believe it is in the Cosmicomics anthology.

EDIT: Props to Nature, they have a relatively recent review of a new edition of this wonderful book.

I can't pick one, so here are a smattering:

E.L. Doctorow has yet to write a disappointing book. He writes fiction stories that are heart-wrenching. The one that gets the best response from people I recommend it to is Homer & Langley.

There's a series by Jonathan L. Howard about this necromancer named Johannes Cabal. It's quite good.

Italian Calvino wrote a book called Cosmicomics that I recommend to everyone, even though technically it's sci-fi.

Scott Lynch wrote a series called The Gentleman Bastards, which is part heist (swashbuckling in the second book), part buddy story, part magic/fantasy. Quite good.

Take a look, it's in a book!

hm, well short stories are generally my go to for lighter reading so I'll recommend a few of those.

Always looking to promote Italo Calvino; desert island picks would probably be Invisible Cities and Cosmicomics. The Baron in the Trees, while not resembling the first two in vignette formatting, also bears mentioning as a personal favorite. Calvino does what some derisively refer to as "magical realism" in the most elegant way. The word economy that he can employ in a description to give a character real depth is utterly stunning.

If that's not your jam, Etgar Keret is also fantastic - in addition to being woefully under appreciated in the states. He writes a lot of "sudden fiction," a vaguely campy term for really short short-fiction; it's dark stuff though, sort of like an Israeli Franz Kafka who watched the Simpsons and read Pynchon. Girl on the Fridge and The Bus Driver Who Wanted to be God are excellent collections to start with.

I mention him last because he's probably the most famous but Haruki Murakami is a perennial favorite of mine, The Elephant Vanishes being a lovely collection of short stories. Were I not in this subreddit, I'd forgo mentioning that this is one of the books that lives in my washroom on the toilet tank, but I'm sure my fellow crohnies will understand.

Hope there are a couple suggestions there that are new to you, happy reading.

Red Sorghum by Mo Yan - brutal Marquez-esque magical realism during WWII-era China.

Captains of the Sands by Jorge Amado - a gang of children and adolescents run rampant on the streets of Bahia, Brazil.

Paprika by Yasutaka Tsutsui - a really odd novel involving machines that can invade people's dreams. Very weird and fun.

Tombstone by Yeng Jisheng - the most thorough and brutal account you'll ever read of the Chinese Famine of 1958-62. Much talk of cannibalism and insect-nutrition charts.

The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Matsuo Basho - it's both a collection of haiku by one of the medium's acknowledged masters and an idiosyncratic travel narrative of 1600s Japan.

Memories of My Melancholy Whores by Gabriel Garcia Marquez - a great first Marquez to recommend to people who don't yet want to take the One Hundred Years of Solitude plunge.

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami - one of the few books I've read more than twice.

The Notebook, The Proof, and The Third Lie by Agota Kristof - a trilogy of short novels about distance and isolation in Europe during and after World War II. The three books form a narrative that contradicts itself, doubles back and retells events, and generally messes with your head until you're not sure what to believe.

Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino - my favorite of Calvino's works. This is a collection of short stories about and narrated by heavenly bodies, mathematical formulae, supreme beings. They're basically cosmic fairy tales.