QBD Proudly Supports
 |
Why Read the Classics? by Italo Calvino, ISBN 9780141189703
|
> Other Books > General Books > Essays, Speeches & Quotations Books
Translated by Martin McLaughlin.
With a Preface by Esther Calvino.
'A classic book at bedtime, a seductive invitation to forgotten opportunities or rereading' The Times.
Why Read the Classics? is an elegant defence of the value of great literature by one of the finest authors of the last century. Beginning with an essay on the attributes that define a classic (number one - classics are those books that people always say they are 'rereading', not 'reading'), this is an absorbing collection of Italo Calvino's witty and passionate criticism.
With thirty-six essays including thoughts on figures like Homer, Hemingway, Borges, Tolstoy and Twain Why Read the Classics? represents Calvino's own canon of great works and is full of the fascinating insights of the mercurial, incisive mind of a brilliant reader, as well as writer.
'One of the most inspiring justifications of great literature I've ever come upon' Sunday Telegraph
RRP: $24.95
| Availability: | Available at our supplier, usually ships in 10 to 14 days.
|
| ISBN 13: | 9780141189703 |
| Binding: | Paperback |
| Pages: | 278 |
| Dimensions: | 198 x 128mm |
| Released: | 01/07/2009 |
| 
|
|
Italo Calvino was born in Santiago de las Vegas, Cuba. Both of his parents, Mario and Eva Calvino, were botanists. Calvino moved with his family in Italy in his youth and spent his early years in San Remo, where his father was the curator of the botanical gardens. Between 1941 and 1947 Calvino studied at the University of Turin. In 1940, he was drafted into the Young Fascists and participated in the Italian occupation of the French Riviere, but at the age of nineteen he left and sought refuge in the Alps. There he joined the Communist Resistance in the Ligurian mountains. From these experiences he drew inspiration for his first stories.
From 1959 to 1967 Calvino edited with Elio Vittorini the magazine Il Menab di letteratura. In 1952 he travelled to the Soviet Union and in 1959-60 to the United States. In 1967 he moved to Paris, and then to Rome in 1979. While living in France, Calvino met the Argentinian translator Ester Judith Singer (Chichita), they were married in 1964 in Havanna. Calvino died of cerebral hemorrhage in Siena, on September 19, 1985. His later essays Le lezioni americane were published posthumously. From the collection Under a Jaguar Sun (1991), stories on the five senses, 'sight' and 'touch' were never completed. Calvino works in it around five central qualities of good fiction lightness, quickness, exactitude, visibility, and multiplicity. In The Uses of Literature (1980) Calvino noted that there should be a time "in adult life devoted to revisiting the most important books of our youth. Even if the books have remained the same, we have most certainly changed, and our encounter will be an entirely new thing."
|
People who purchased "Why Read the Classics? by Italo Calvino" also purchased...
|
|
| Gift Vouchers |
|---|
|
| Newsletter |
|---|
| Join our mailing list for great deals and special offers!
|
| Featured Book |
|---|
Backlash
RRP: $29.99QBD: $22.99
|
|
Cart: 0 items, $0.00|
