The Complete Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino: Book Beginnings on Fridays, First Line Friday, The Friday 56, and Book Blogger Hop

Today's Featured Book 

The Complete Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino

Genre: Fantasy

Published: 1965

Page Count: 400 pages

Summary: 

Through the eyes of a “cosmic know-it-all” with the unpronounceable name of Qfwfq, Calvino explores natural phenomena and tells the story of the origins of the universe. Relating complex scientific and mathematical concepts to our everyday world, they are an indelible and delightful literary achievement.

 

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAY is hosted by Rose City Reader. What book are you happy about reading this week? Please share the opening sentence (or so) on BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAY! Add the link to your blog or social media post and visit other blogs to see what others are reading.

Happy Friday and welcome to the FIRST LINE FRIDAY, hosted by Reading is My Superpower! It’s time to grab the book nearest to you and leave a comment with the first line.

She was coming closer—Qfwfq recalled—I noticed it as I was going home, raising my eyes between the walls of glass and steel, and I saw her, no longer a light like all the others that shine in the evening: the ones they light on Earth when at a certain hour they pull down a lever at the power station, or those of the sky, further away but similar, or at least not out of harmony with the style of all the rest—I speak in the present tense, but I am still referring to those remote times—I saw her breaking away from all the other lights of the sky and the streets, standing out in the concave map of darkness, no longer occupying a point, perhaps a big one on the order of Mars and Venus, like a hole through which the light spreads, but now becoming an out-and-out portion of space, and she was taking form, not yet clearly identifiable because eyes weren’t used to identifying it, but also because the outlines weren’t sufficiently precise to define a regular figure. Anyway I saw it was becoming a thing. And it revolted me.

Calvino, Italo. The Complete Cosmicomics.

THE FRIDAY 56 is hosted by Freda's Voice, but Freda is currently taking a break and Anne of Head Full of Books is filling in. To play, open a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% on your e-reader). Find a sentence or two and post them, along with the book title and author. Then link up on Freda's Voice and visit others in the linky. 

Now I know all of you will raise a flock of objections because being in love presupposes not only self-awareness but also awareness of the other, et cetera, et cetera, and all I can answer is thanks a lot I know that much myself but if you aren’t going to be patient there’s no use in my trying to explain, and above all you have to forget for a minute the way you fall in love nowadays, the way I do too now, if you’ll permit me confidences of this sort, I say confidences because I know if I told you about my falling in love at present you could accuse me of being indiscreet, whereas I can talk without any scruples about the time when I was a unicellular organism, that is I can talk about it objectively as the saying goes, because it’s all water under the bridge now, and it’s a feat on my part even to remember it, and yet what I do remember is still enough to disturb me from head to foot, so when I use the word ‘objectively’ it’s a figure of speech, as it always is when you start out saying you’re objective and then what with one thing and another you end up being subjective, and so this business I want to tell you about is difficult for me precisely because it keeps slipping into the subjective, in my subjective state of those days, which though I recall it only partially still disturbs me from head to foot like my subjective of the present, and that’s why I’ve used expressions that have the disadvantage of creating confusion with what is different nowadays while they have the advantage of bringing to light what is common between the two times.

Calvino, Italo. The Complete Cosmicomics.

The purpose of THE BOOK BLOGGER HOP is to give bloggers a chance to follow other blogs, learn about new books, and befriend other bloggers. THE BOOK BLOGGER HOP is hosted by Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer.    

May 31st-June 6th - June 5th is World Environment Day. Can you suggest a book that has an environmental message or theme? (submitted by Billy @ Coffee Addicted Writer)

Of course! As a Texas Master Naturalist, I highly recommend Rachel Carson's The Sea Around Us; Robin Wall Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass; and Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.