Cosmicomics is a wild imagination’s love letter to science. It’s a series of tales told by a creature named Qfwfq, who’s been around since before the universe began.

Mildly neurotic Qfwfq and his family, including Captain Vhd and sister G’d(w)n, witness the birth of matter, gamble with hydrogen atoms, become dinosaurs, fall in love, and invent vision.

Author Italo Calvino has one of the most astounding imaginations I’ve ever encountered, and these short stories, which feel like a mixture of tall tale, myth, and confessional, combine scientific rigor with total abandonment of logic. If you don’t try to make too much sense of these stories, you’re in for a wonderful ride.

Recommendation: Buy it, but buy it used. Some books deserve to have cracked spines and worn pages from being read so many times.

Dan

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