The Complete Cosmicomics

As the name would imply, The Complete Cosmicomics deals with all manner of things concerning the cosmos. The beauty of his writing is that he is able to bridge the cosmic nature of the universe with human nature almost seamlessly. His stories have a uniquely human side to them despite dealing with science fiction themes. Some stories may deal with beings that are celestial and not human at all, yet have many human characteristics to them that make them and their struggles relatable. Calvino offers a unique insight on all the themes he covers that is both thought-provoking and refreshing. The Complete Cosmicomics stands as a Blue Giant amongst the stars of the literary universe.

A great story teller takes scientific facts and spins stories around them. His flights of imagination are exciting, educational, entertaining and illuminating.

This is a difficult book to describe. Closest I can come is that it's like reading a sophisticated comic book, but without the illustrations. I tend to pick up interesting books and read them straight-through...whenever I have spare time. Just finished "Hold Up the Sky" in that manner...every spare moment for about a week went into reading that book. "The Complete Cosmicomics" is the first book I can recall that I find myself reading in small chunks. Read one story, go away and read an entire other book or two, and come back, read another story, go away to something else. And the strange thing is that it's a fairly fascinating book...in small portions. At my present rate, it'll take me about six months to get through this slim book, while in the meantime reading about 20 other entire books. Not sure why this is. Perhaps the stories are so strange and the premises presented so outlandish (example: beings exist scrunched together within the singularity before the "big bang" that creates the universe) that overload sets in or my ability to suspend disbelief decreases quickly. I'm enjoying it, but having finished the above-mentioned book of Chinese science fiction / fantasy, I'm ready for one short cosmicomic story followed by a book on formal logic. I honestly can't recall ever approaching a book like this. If I can't muster the enthusiasm to read something from start to finish, I have always simply abandoned the book and looked for something more interesting. In this instance, the fascination is there, but the stories seem best experienced in very small doses.

One of the great books of fiction I have read. Calvino has a voice and mind like no other. It made me laugh out loud in certain sections.

Guh, I want to love this so much, because Invisible Cities is the best book ever. And it starts out SOOOOOOO brilliant. Some of these stories are just mind blowingly intelligent and weird. And yet others and just novellas of navel gazing, thousands of words just strung together in a meaningless fashion that it is almost physically painful to read, like a drunken blog post. This is an uncut version of the book, which may be part of the problem. I get the feeling that some of these stories were cut as crap, and that would be an improvement.

I first heard of Italo Calvino from a RadioLab podcast where Leiv Shreiber reads "Distance to the Moon". After listening to that particular podcast about a bazillion times I decided to buy this book. Every story had me smiling or shaking my head in awe of how clever and good it was. This is definitely one of my favorite books.

Unique collection worth owning.

Bought this second hand and the quality was great and I got a hardcover! My favorite bedtime stories that can be shared by child and adult alike. Will always keep a copy on my shelf.