If On A Winter's Night A Traveller

You go into a bookshop and buyIf on a Winter's Night a Travellerby Italo Calvino. You like it. But alas there is a printer's error in your copy. You take it back to the shop and get a replacement. But the replacement seems to be a totally different story. You try to track down the original book you were reading but end up with a different narrative again. This remarkable novel leads you through many different books including a detective adventure, a romance, a satire, an erotic story, a diary and a quest. But the real hero is you, the reader.

Italo Calvino was born in Cuba and grew up in Italy. During the war he was a member of the Italian Resistance and joined the Communist Party, although he later left in 1957. One of the most respected writers of our time, his best-known works of fiction includeInvisibleCities,If on a winter's night a traveller,MarcovaldoandMr Palomar. In 1981 he was awarded the prestigious French Légion d'Honneur. He died in Siena in 1985.

'Breathtakingly inventive' David Mitchell