If on a Winter's Night a Traveller - Italo Calvino & William Weaver

“What an odd title,” you may think, “aren’t all books for readers?” Yes, of course, they are, but this book is something special, it is a book of a kind you’ve never read before. Here the reader (you and I) becomes a protagonist, the reader then becomes the Reader (with a capital letter), a young man who leads us through the book together with the Other Reader, a young woman. Reading as such is a subject as is writing and authors, publishing and publishers, translating and translators. Believe me, there is nothing you could associate with these subjects that isn’t dealt with here! I read the German translation in the early 1980s (the book was published in ...

This is a novel about readers, about reading. Italo Calvino asks what we look for in a book, what attracts us to a story. Addressing the reader, he turns you into a character - into the hero - in a tantalising web of tales. And, in the preface, you have selected this very volume. Calvino's method of new beginnings, teasing you with a series of new stories, drew me on as much as it does the protagonist. It lures your curiosity, offering a treasure-trove of possibilities. Any of the beginnings he offers has the promise of an enjoyable book; together they feed your expectations. The best motif is perhaps The Thousand and One Nights, a stream of stories as vital ...