If on a Winter's Night a Traveller: A special edition of the classic genre-defying novel

Hardback Published on: 05/10/2023; Language: English, Italian (Original language of a translated text)
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Synopsis

A novel built from beginnings...

You buy a book called If On A Winter’s Night a Traveller and sit down to read. The story stops mid-sentence. When you find another copy, it contains a different opening. Each attempt to continue leads to a new narrative that breaks off just as it gathers momentum.

As the Reader, you set out to track down the missing text. Along the way you encounter Ludmilla, another reader pursuing the same vanished book. What follows is a sequence of interrupted stories: thrillers, romances, political intrigues, each complete in its promise but not in its conclusion.

This novel turns reading itself into the central drama. The search for the next chapter becomes the plot. Every ending leads back to another beginning.

'Breathtakingly inventive' David Mitchell

'A writer of dizzying ambition and variety, each of his stories is a fresh adventure into the possibilities of fiction' Guardian

VINTAGE QUARTERBOUND CLASSICS: Bound to be beautiful

Publisher information

  • Publisher: Vintage Publishing
  • ISBN: 9781784878665
  • Number of pages: 288
  • Dimensions: 206 x 137 x 27 mm
  • Weight: 333g
  • Languages: English, Italian (Original language of a translated text)

Customer Reviews

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If on a Winter's Night a Traveller
If on a Winter's Night a Traveller
I personally didn't understand what this book was about, and didn't particularly enjoy the writing either....I wouldn't recommend this to anyone
Hiral Patel
If on a Winter's Night a Traveller
Failed to captivate.
After reading the cover and the opening chapter in the shop, intrigued by its unique plot, I bought it and couldn't wait to start. Excitedly, I put my cur... READ MORE
E0wyn
If on a Winter's Night a Traveller
10/10, would marry this book.
This isn't the sort of book you read on the tube, or the bus, or in your lunch break. You have to be in the right mood, I'd recommend reading it under a pl... READ MORE
Fanny Price
If on a Winter's Night a Traveller
If on a Winter's Night a Traveller
Seems like a highly enjoyable book. I started it almost as soon as I got home from the bookshop. However, my copy had a weird printing error starting on pa... READ MORE
Finkle
If on a Winter's Night a Traveller
Brilliant. Highly recommend.
This is the kind of book you may find confusing at first. However, when you get into it and start to begin to understand the plot and what the book (author... READ MORE
Charlotte Ryan
If on a Winter's Night a Traveller
Boring, boring, boring
I have had to force myself to continue with this book. It is uninspiring, tedious, self-indulgent ... Don't waste your money or time on it.
Gladys Pye
If on a Winter's Night a Traveller
Gave up
Started this book 3 times, failed to finish 3 times. Now given up! Very clever structure but perhaps just a little too clever , making it a tricky fractu... READ MORE
Philip Kaloo
If on a Winter's Night a Traveller
I would give this book 6 stars
This book is quintessential post modern literature. You are taken on a journey of a meaningless search for structure only to find none and therfore are con... READ MORE
Stuart, Leamington Spa
If on a Winter's Night a Traveller
Glad to of finished the book
Perhaps Italo Calvino was having a writers block and couldn’t finish his own novels. Facing pressures from publishers, he complied his unfinished stories i... READ MORE
Charlotte Neilson
If on a Winter's Night a Traveller
The best novel ever written?
I would go as far to argue the case. It is certainly my favourite novel of all time. The prose is inventive, and, though sometimes clumsy in translation, t... READ MORE
Crash Nichols
If on a Winter's Night a Traveller
Inventive and escapist
A wonderfully inventive slice of escapism and a great influence on David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas in particular. A real exercise in creativity.
Mark Bowsher
If on a Winter's Night a Traveller
Gripping start that doesn’t really deliver
Calvino had this brilliant idea for a novel and indeed the first chapter or two are really attention-grabbing, entertaining, funny etc. but after a while y... READ MORE
Paul Bryans
If on a Winter's Night a Traveller
Convoluted and difficult to figure out
I really struggled with this book. Ostensibly it is about a series of disconnected stories that are linked by involving the reader by making the reader... READ MORE
Canuck Abroad