Italo Calvino never wrote a bad book. Yet an author of such diffusion, without a single, encompassing magnum opus to embrace (some readers will argue for “Invisible Cities,” but that ineffably lovely book shows too narrow a range of Calvino’s effects, too little of his omnivorous exuberance) needs a beginner’s entry point, as well, perhaps, as a compendium to point toward posterity. Does it seem sacrilegious to propose a fat volume called “The Best of Calvino”? Call it “Tales,” then, or “Sixty Stories.” Does it seem to do violence to choose from linked pieces, or from books long since enshrined in reader’s hearts in their present, inviolate state? It isn’t as though the individual volumes need to go out of print to make room for the career-spanning omnibus I have in mind. Perhaps you consider it impossible to choose from within a structure as organically perfect as “Invisible Cities”? Fine, then include the entirety of that short book, just as “The Thurber Carnival” found space for the whole of “My Life and Hard Times.”
more form the NY Times Book Review here.