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Cosmicomics
Cosmicomics
Nov 30, 2025 5:39 PM

Author:Italo Calvino

Cosmicomics

Introducing Little Clothbound Classics: irresistible, mini editions of short stories, novellas and essays from the world's greatest writers, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith.

Celebrating the range and diversity of Penguin Classics, they take us from snowy Japan to springtime Vienna, from haunted New England to a sun-drenched Mediterranean island, and from a game of chess on the ocean to a love story on the moon. Beautifully designed and printed, these collectible editions are bound in colourful, tactile cloth and stamped with foil.

Twelve enchanting and fantastical stories about the evolution of the universe from the giant of Italian literature, Italo Calvino. His characters - whether human, dinosaur or mollusc - disport themselves among galaxies, experience the solidification of planets, move from aquatic to terrestrial existence, play games with hydrogen atoms - and have time for a love life.

'A landmark in fiction, the work of a master' - Ursula K Le Guin

Reviews

If you have never read Cosmicomics, you have before you the most joyful reading experience of your life

—— Salman Rushdie

A landmark in fiction, the work of a master

—— Ursula K Le Guin

This is classic Calvino, making you think and laugh at the same time

—— John Self

The closest thing we have to an autobiography by Lispector and contain many rewarding reflections on her own work . . . thrillingly unpredictable . . . singular visitations from a brilliant entity

—— Nick Holdstock , Literary Review

Lispector writes and thinks like nobody else, sending her readers off to look at the world through strange new lispectacles

—— Miranda France , TLS

An emblematic twentieth-century artist who belongs in the same pantheon as Kafka and Joyce

—— Edmund White

Plenty of writers inspire fierce devotion in their readers... but no one converts the uninitiated into devout believers as suddenly and as vertiginously as Clarice Lispector, the Latin American visionary, Ukrainian-Jewish mystic, and middle-class housewife and mother so revered by her Brazilian fans that she's known by a single name: "Clarice"

—— New Republic

She writes with sensuous verve, bringing her earliest passions into adult life intact, along with a child's undiminished capacity for wonder

—— The New York Times Book Review

For those unfamiliar with her, this book opens a door into her uniquely challenging and rewarding body of work . . . the pieces, some amounting to a few sentences, some many pages long, make up a self-portrait in bits and pieces. The result is, like Lispector herself, witty, mystical, surreal and profound: a treasure to return to again and again

—— Madoc Cairns , Guardian

Her crônicas - short pieces of observational writing inflected by personal experience but aimed at illuminating something larger - came after her novels, and met with great acclaim... Reading Lispector is unlike reading anyone else...the texts collected in Too Much Life evidence a perspicacious and playful mind keen to share in the magic and mystery of living.

—— Franklin Nelson , Financial Times

A golden apple has to go to the extraordinary Too Much of Life: Complete chronicles by Clarice Lispector ... a collection of newspaper columns, bursting with lapidary wisdom and hallucinatory, voluptuous imagery

—— Keith Miller , TLS Books of the Year

Too Much of Life is an extraordinary collection of fragmented, essayistic, fictive thoughts ... vast, playful and volcanic

—— Carlos Valladares , Gagosian Quarterly

Beautifully written with a hint of mythology and well-drawn characters, this is a captivating story of love and loss that will stay with you

—— Candis

An absolutely beautiful story of love, loss, family and motherhood. Told in interweaving strands, it follows the story of Scottie whose mysterious past haunts her, and whose own struggles to become a mother is slowly destroying her . . . I read this book in just two sittings, the lyrical prose pulled me in and held me captivated, and my heart wept and sang in equal measure. Truly stunning

—— Louise Morrish, author of Operation Moonlight

Annie Kirby writes so beautifully about place, I felt I was there with her on the islands, watching the waves. I love how she weaves together myth and reality, and found her portrayal of Scottie and Jasminder's thwarted attempts to have children very moving

—— Sarah Butler, author of Before The Fire

The Hollow Sea elegantly interweaves the stories of two women haunted by hope and loss. Eloquent and moving, with a touch of folklore, this is a beautiful, hopeful tale

—— Elizabeth Lee, author of Cunning Women

Heart-wrenching, haunting, and ultimately hopeful too. Extraordinary. Beautiful, thought-provoking and woven through with folklore and myth, an utterly absorbing read that will touch your heart. Magnificent. Unforgettable.

—— Liz Hyder, author of The Gifts

Fiercely original . . . a really powerful, provocative and original debut

—— Natasha Solomons, author of I, Mona Lisa

An exquisitely-crafted novel about heritage, folklore and the persistent roar of unfulfilled dreams. When I finished it, I felt like I'd emerged from the sea, dripping with salt and tangled in kelp. Dizzyingly brilliant

—— Lizzie Pook, author of Moonlight and the Pearler's Daughter

A Coast 'Book of the Month'

—— -

Incredibly atmospheric and multifaceted

—— Culturefly

TJR is surely the queen of escapist fiction

—— Sunday Telegraph

This top-rank tale of beating the odds is full of heart and breezy charm

—— Metro

Altogether, it makes for a gripping and engaging read about a woman persevering against all odds, recognising your limits and knowing when to push back. As well as a complex and nuanced character study, Carrie Soto is Back offers its readers a warm-hearted story of the love between a father and a daughter, as well a tender journey of learning how to love yourself and open up to others too. Between the action-packed tennis matches, Carrie's emotional reckoning and the wider commentary of women having to continuously fight for recognition in male-dominated fields, Taylor Jenkins Reid has crafted another compelling novel that effortlessly draws in readers and will no doubt keep them thinking about Carrie Soto long after they turn the final page

—— Culturefly

At times, her prose is so engaging that you feel as though you are waiting on the baseline while Soto gets ready to serve an unstoppable ace

—— Independent (Ireland)

In Carrie Soto is Back, as at Flushing Meadows this and next month, there are great rivalries, millions of dollars and legacies on the line. Letting go cuts deep. But, boy, there is glamour

—— Tatler

The author has created another heroine we can't quite work out whether we like, but we're rooting for her anyway because she's fabulous

—— Woman's Weekly

Another delectable slice of escapism drama

—— Living North

Pacy, propulsive and utterly immersive, you're going to want to read this

—— Elle

Taylor has done it again . . . a brilliant and dynamic book about what it means to be an ambitious woman- for better or for worse

—— Woman

With a wonderfully complex character, a world you can't help being seduced by, and an important message about it never being too late, TJR has served up another ace

—— Heat

Frank, funny and emotional

—— Marie Claire

A fascinatingly realistic look into the world of elite sports where driven and flawed characters' private lives are just as intriguing and controversial as they are on the court

—— Business Post

This is a well-researched, exciting and genuinely tender book

—— RTÉ
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