Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino 2 Books Collection Set - Fiction - Paperback

Titles in This Set:
Invisible Cities
The 99% Invisible City: A Field Guide to the Hidden World of Everyday Design

Format: Paperback

Overview:
This thoughtfully paired collection joins Italo Calvino’s visionary novella Invisible Cities with The 99% Invisible City, a compelling field guide by Roman Mars and Kurt Kohlstedt. The result is a literary/design conversation you can carry in your bag: two distinct but complementary explorations of how humans imagine, inhabit, and shape the spaces around us. Calvino’s Invisible Cities invites readers into a mosaic of imagined metropolises, where memory, desire, and time blur the lines between travelogues and fables. Across its lyric exchanges, the book becomes a meditation on perception and storytelling. The 99% Invisible City, by contrast, peels back everyday design to reveal the hidden decisions that steer urban life—from signage to sidewalks to infrastructure. Together, these two paperback titles offer a balanced experience for curious minds: a door into other worlds and a practical lens for seeing the built environment anew. This set is ideal for readers who relish thoughtful fiction and accessible design writing, and it makes a memorable gift for city lovers and bibliophiles alike.

What This Collection Covers:
In this two-book set, you’ll explore two different pathways to understanding cities. Calvino’s Invisible Cities uses an invented dialogue between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan to reflect on how places live in memory, how narratives travel, and how cities are more illusions than coordinates. The prose paints landscapes that are at once dreamlike and precise, inviting readers to interpret each city as a possibility rather than a map. The 99% Invisible City turns a critical eye to the ordinary details of urban life—how design choices shape behavior, attention, and well-being. Mars and Kohlstedt blend historical anecdotes with accessible explanations, making complex design concepts approachable for non-specialists. Read together, these books cultivate a dual literacy: the imaginative fluency of literature and the practical curiosity of design thinking—a powerful combination for personal growth, classroom discussion, or a thoughtful gift.

Book-by-Book Guide:
Invisible Cities — In Calvino’s signature lyrical style, a travelling raconteur describes fantastical cities to an emperor, using each vignette to probe memory, desire, and the nature of human experience. The book is less a straightforward narrative than a series of meditations where architecture becomes metaphor. Readers are invited to draw their own meanings from the cityscapes, turning each page into a mirror that reflects personal interpretations of time, transformation, and imagination. It’s a book that rewards slow reading: savor the imagery, revisit lines, and let the city’s moods shift with every reencounter. Perfect for fans of literary fiction that blends philosophy with dreamlike world-building.

The 99% Invisible City: A Field Guide to the Hidden World of Everyday Design — Mars and Kohlstedt guide readers through the invisible layers of urban life, from the curb to the corner cafe, revealing how design decisions shape our behavior, safety, and delight. The book reads like a well-curated field guide, offering anecdotes, diagrams, and thoughtful explanations that demystify the built environment. It encourages a more curious eye when walking a city block or navigating a transit system, turning everyday encounters into opportunities for inquiry and appreciation. Accessible to non-designers, yet rich enough for students and professionals who study architecture, planning, or visual culture. It’s a practical companion for curious readers who want to understand how cities work behind the scenes.

Who This Set Is Perfect For:
This duo is ideal for adults who love cross-disciplinary reading, students of urban studies, and curious travelers who view every street corner as a potential classroom. It suits book clubs seeking a balance of fiction and non-fiction, educators looking for complementary texts for literature or design curricula, and gift-givers aiming to inspire conversations about how we inhabit our environments. It’s especially well-suited for readers who appreciate language that is at once precise and poetic, and for those who enjoy unpacking the unseen logic behind everyday objects and spaces. If you’re building a personal library with durable, conversation-starting titles, this set fits the bill beautifully.

Key Benefits:

• Two complementary titles that broaden understanding of cities from literary and design perspectives.
• Accessible yet thought-provoking reading suitable for adults, students, and gift buyers.
• Ideal for book clubs, classroom discussions, and urban studies explorations.
• Engaging, portable paperback editions that are easy to carry on commutes and travels.
• Encourages visual literacy and imaginative thinking about space, place, and memory.
• A distinctive gift set for readers who love world-building and real-world design insights.

About the Author:
Italo Calvino (1923–1985) remains one of the most celebrated Italian writers of the 20th century, renowned for blending fantasy, philosophy, and precise prose to illuminate human perception. Invisible Cities is among his most enduring works, a meditation on urban imagination that transcends genre. The 99% Invisible City is written by Roman Mars, host of the acclaimed podcast exploring design and architecture in everyday life, and Kurt Kohlstedt, a design writer and editor who co-authored this field-guide-style exploration. Together, these authors bring a rare fusion of lyrical storytelling and accessible design analysis, inviting readers to see cities as living narratives shaped by culture, technology, and daily habit.

Why You’ll Love This Set:
If you crave books that encourage you to slow down and look closely at the world, this set delivers. The pairing offers a meaningful contrast—one work of imagination that turns cities into allegory, and one practical guide that reveals how design quietly governs daily life. Owning both titles creates a richer reading experience than either would alone: you’ll wander imaginary metropolises while simultaneously gaining a sharper eye for the spaces you inhabit every day. It’s a thoughtful, durable combination that suits personal libraries, classrooms, and gift-giving alike, inviting ongoing rereading and discussion about what cities are and what they could become.

Please Note: The individual books included in this listing will be dispatched as per the original UK ISBN and UK edition cover image shown in the image.