You, the Reader, wrap your head around Italo Calvino's trippy tale

Italo Calvino's tale-within-a-tale-within-a-tale can best be described as a 'nesting doll' novel that deconstructs the very act of reading. Photo: Visual Hunt

If On A Winter’s Night A Traveller was a curious novel when virtuosic Italian writer Italo Calvino wrote it in 1979 – and it remains a curious novel today.

On the one hand, it completely deconstructs not just what a novel is but even the very act of reading. At the same time, it is also a celebration of the novel and of the reader, so much so that the main character in the book is actually You, the Reader.