Cosimo, a young eighteenth-century Italian nobleman, rebels by climbing into the trees to remain there for the rest of his life. He adapts efficiently to an arboreal existence and even has love affairs. Translated by Archibald Colquhoun.

Italo Calvino imagines a novel capable of endless mutations in this intricately crafted story about writing and readers. If on a Winter's Night a Traveler turns out to be not one novel but ten, each with a different plot, style, ambience, and author, and each interrupted at a moment of suspense. Together they form a labyrinth of literatures, known and unknown, alive and extinct, through which two readers, a male and a female, pursue both the story lines that intrigue them and one another.

本書為卡爾維諾生前出版的最後一本獨白小說，是其最具盛名的經典代表作。書中透過帕洛瑪先生的代言，將卡爾維諾的人生哲觀做一清楚鮮明的敘述，其文學價值崇高，將小說拉高到語言哲學、記號學及人類學的層次。並且行文不著雕琢痕跡，敘述他（帕洛瑪先生）觀察事務的方法、觀察後的連想，最後將兩者拉高到理念層次，心靈獨白與自我詰問，綜合成卡爾維諾的心靈傳記，留給後人得以理解他的軌跡。 全書共分三章：1、帕洛瑪先生的假期；2、帕洛瑪先生在城市裡；3、帕洛瑪先生的沉默。其標題的1.2.3.不論位於第一或第二、三位數，除了純粹的順序意義外，也對應了三個主題範圍，三種經驗和探究，依其比重呈現在本書的每個部位。

Tales of love and loneliness in which the author blends reality and illusion. "The quirkiness and grace of the writing, the originality of the imagination at work, ...and a certain lovable nuttiness make this collection well worth reading" (Margaret Atwood). Translated by William Weaver, Peggy Wright, and Archibald Colquhoun. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book

Six Memos for the Millennium is a collection of five lectures Italo Calvino was about to deliver at the time of his death. Here is his legacy to us: the universal values he pinpoints become the watchwords for our appreciation of Calvino himself. What should be cherished in literature? Calvino devotes one lecture, or memo to the reader, to each of five indispensable qualities: lightness , quickness , exactitude , visibility , and multiplicity . A sixth lecture, on consistency , was never committed to paper, and we are left only to ponder the possibilities. With this book, he gives us the most eloquent defense of literature written in the twentieth century—a fitting gift for the next millennium.

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.

In "Invisible Cities" Marco Polo conjures up cities of magical times for his host, the Chinese ruler Kublai Khan, but gradually it becomes clear that he is actually describing one city: Venice. As Gore Vidal wrote 'of all tasks, describing the contents of a book is the most difficult and in the case of a marvelous invention like "Invisible Cities", perfectly irrelevant'.

《分成兩半的子爵》討論了缺憾、偏頗、人性的匱乏。故事的起點是非常簡單、非常鮮明的意象或情境：劈成兩半的子爵，兩片人體各自繼續過著自己的生活－－一半是邪惡的子爵，極盡破壞之能事，一半是善良的子爵，處處助人。爬到樹上的男孩不願意下來，一輩子在樹上度過；一具中空的甲冑自認為是一名男子，不斷貫徹它自己的意志力。故事由意象滋長出來，而不是來自作者想要闡述的理念；意象在故事之中的發展，也全憑故事的內在邏輯。這些故事的意義——準確地說，這些故事以意象為基礎而衍生的意義網絡——總是有點不確定的；我們無法堅持一種毫無疑義的、強制認可的詮釋。