I'm only in the middle of the book, but even if the rest of the stories are complete duds, it still deserves five stars!

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The rest of the stories confirmed my opinion of this collection. The only other Calvino I've been able to finish was _If on a Winter's Night a Traveller_ which made me feel alternately frustrated and inspired. These stories deal with less abstract concerns than usual for Calvino. We have characters, narrative, plot(!) - all things I can get excited about anyway. But Calvino's mastery of language (of course, in translation. Sigh.) and his sense of people make each story luminous. I would pick out favorites, but it's impossible, they're all that good (except maybe one or two, but I'm not holding *that* against him).