Reddit reviews Invisible Cities

1. Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
   
2. 9.3/10
   
3. Magical Realism, Fantasy, Post-Modern
   
4. Interesting and accessible look at time and perception
   
5. http://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Cities-Italo-Calvino/dp/0156453800
   
   EDIT: Why did someone downvote this? I mean it's just one downvote and it's not the karma that bothers me but, seriously, redditiquette, guys. I made an on topic post that followed the guidelines. If you didn't like the book leave a comment. Let's not downvote things simply because you don't agree.

Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino

Marco Polo is at the end of his career, describing the many wondrous cities he's seen in his travels to the emperor. With each description, he captures the essential essence of the place. A city whose buildings are remembered like the notes of a song. A city whose past is recorded on the walls and floors. The emperor shows incredibility at the facts of what Marco Polo says, but both of them share an understanding of the underlying truths of his worlds.

Told as a series of one-page descriptions of imaginary cities with the occasional framing scene, this book isn't a novel or collection of short stories, but almost a longer-form version of what Borges set out to do in so many of his shorts.

Here's one that I hold in as high esteem as Jacobs, Mumford, and any other typical "must read" for planning, despite being magical-realist fiction: Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino.

Framed by the story of Marco Polo telling Kubla Kahn of his travels, he describes 55 cities each in their own prose poem, sometimes just a paragraph long. He imagines cities where all connections between people are represented by physical strings; traveling cities; cities that never stop building, etc. etc.

Much like Jane Jacobs, it brings a human element to something that is often studied from a technical lens. It will inspire passion and imagination, and will offer a very unique perspective to some urban planning ideas. Don't let the short length fool you - it is very dense, and should be absorbed slowly.

I am an architect. I gained my Bachelors from UNM and masters from Rice. I largely focus on theoretical works that incorporate computation and digital fabrication.

I personally think The Fountainhead is a joke. There is nothing in that book that relates to anything truly in Architecture other than using the profession as a tool for her to present her personally skewed views on things. Could have been about a plumber.

If there is a "religious experience" it is in throwing yourself into what you love. But I can't imagine someone stuck detailing windows on four story double loaded corridor apartment buildings having a religious experience...unless it is some sort of pittance.

I would do a lot more investigating into the field. There are many corners of the profession that are all interesting and unique. I would start by visiting some local schools if you happen to be near any. You may be able to have a visit and get a sense of the student commitment and time consumption. Post charette can be a good time to visit and see the chaos in its resultant form and watching students present on little to no sleep.

If Ayn Rand is what is motivating you to get into architecture I would recommend you instead turn to something like, The Atlas of Novel Tectonics and Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities as more appropriate places to begin to understand Architecture from within...at least in its generalized contemporary form.

Atlas of Novel Tectonics
http://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Novel-Tectonics-Jesse-Reiser/dp/1568985541

Invisible Cities
http://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Cities-Italo-Calvino/dp/0156453800


If these things make you hungrier...keep feeding the investigation.

>...create a fantasy world in which a character is perfectly happy, without any conflicts ... But that would be a very boring book.

You know, I hear this all the time- that stories require conflict- but I'm not sure I agree.

Take a look at something like Invisible Cities, Changing Planes, or Imaginary Magnitude. They're all more descriptions of fictional worlds than traditional narratives, but they still make for extremely good reading, despite having no central conflicts.

In the same vein, I enjoy reading the setting descriptions in tabletop rpg sourcebooks, as well as worldbuilding projects like the SCP Foundation or Orion's Arm, and things like this.

So, if worldbuilding alone can provide enjoyment, then what's to say that worldbuilding in more traditional narratives has to be in service to something else?

Not sure if these meet your criteria, but they might be close:

Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino.

The Islanders by Christopher Priest.

Here is what I have been reading lately. How about you?

The Malay House: Rediscovering Malaysia's Indigenous Shelter System

The Designer's Eye

Invisible Cities

A Place of My Own: The Architecture of Daydreams

Stardust

Off the top of my head, I'd recommend "Einstein's Dreams," by Alan Lightman. You may also like Italo Calvino's "Invisible Cities" and "If on a winter's night a traveler."

A couple of books that have sparked ideas and helped me with cities:

• Fief by Lisa J. Steele is an extremely well-researched book about real-life medieval towns and cities, specifically written for GMs, authors and the like. The PDF seems a little spendy, but for the quality of the research and the book itself I wholeheartedly recommend it. I haven't had a chance to look at Town, the companion book, so I can't speak to it.
  
  
• Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino is a meditation on the nature of cities themselves, and is super-metaphorical, but some of the ideas contained therein make for some amazing fantasy cities (the city of naiads made up entirely of pipes and plumbing, the city built according to the pattern of the stars that now brims with hideous deformities), and it's an excellent all-around read.

The Most Beautiful House in the World

• Gives an interesting perspective on space, intention, and what makes a house a home (to me, your mileage may vary).
  
  Invisible Cities
  
  
• Can't really explain it other than pure imagination fuel.

I recommend Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino to everyone. I've yet to find anyone who wasn't inspired or intrigued by some small part of that book.

If anyone else happens to like those short-format thought collection-style books, two other interesting ones that I really like are:

Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman

Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino

I come back to both of these books repeatedly for creative inspiration, I like them so much. I have yet to read Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives, but from what Grey said, I feel like the two that I mentioned might be a little bit more in-depth and may require a bit more work to understand in some cases.

hm, well short stories are generally my go to for lighter reading so I'll recommend a few of those.

Always looking to promote Italo Calvino; desert island picks would probably be Invisible Cities and Cosmicomics. The Baron in the Trees, while not resembling the first two in vignette formatting, also bears mentioning as a personal favorite. Calvino does what some derisively refer to as "magical realism" in the most elegant way. The word economy that he can employ in a description to give a character real depth is utterly stunning.

If that's not your jam, Etgar Keret is also fantastic - in addition to being woefully under appreciated in the states. He writes a lot of "sudden fiction," a vaguely campy term for really short short-fiction; it's dark stuff though, sort of like an Israeli Franz Kafka who watched the Simpsons and read Pynchon. Girl on the Fridge and The Bus Driver Who Wanted to be God are excellent collections to start with.

I mention him last because he's probably the most famous but Haruki Murakami is a perennial favorite of mine, The Elephant Vanishes being a lovely collection of short stories. Were I not in this subreddit, I'd forgo mentioning that this is one of the books that lives in my washroom on the toilet tank, but I'm sure my fellow crohnies will understand.

Hope there are a couple suggestions there that are new to you, happy reading.

Wow, that's the dude who wrote Invisible Cities, a fantasy about Kubilai Khan and Marco Polo, which is fucking amazing.

He died in 1985. Do you know when this Alaska piece was written?