Books like Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino

A timeless tale of a prince visiting Earth to learn about adults and human folly.

The beloved classic of American literature, Little Women, narrates the adventures of four March sisters as they grow up during the Civil War era.

Inspector Tyador Borlú journeys from Besźel to Ul Qoma to investigate the murder of a woman, navigating two distinct cities that both share one physical space yet have separate identities.

Cambodian child soldier recounts his survival against the Khmer Rouge regime.

A woman steals a job from a rich man in a trash dump to save her ailing son.

When a young writer discovers his grandfather’s tale of a military deserter risking life in wartime Leningrad, he learns how they gathered hard‑to‑find ingredients for a wedding cake destined for a powerful colonel’s daughter.

A personal diary of the young Queen Victoria, from age eight to her wedding anniversary in 1843.

A young boy battles bullies over the local basketball court.

A riveting historical novel about the rise of a young queen in 16th-century Spain, from the acclaimed author of "The Queen's Vow"

Josh, a UFO‑obsessed teenager whose archaeologist father perishes in an air crash, races across Mexico to find the lost Maya Ix Codex—a prophetic book that could end the world.

"The first novel to appear in English by one of the most talked-about and critically acclaimed writers of new Mexican fiction. From a psychoanalyst's couch, the narrator looks back on her bizarre childhood--in which she was born with an abnormality in her eye into a family intent on fixing it. In a world without the time and space for innocence, the narrator intimately recalls her younger self--a fierce and discerning girl open to life's pleasures and keen to its ruthless cycle of tragedy. With raw language and a brilliant sense of humor, both delicate and unafraid, Nettel strings together hard-won, unwieldy memories--taking us from Mexico City to Aix-en-Provence, France, then back home again--to create a portrait of the artist as a young girl. In these pages, Nettel's art of storytelling transforms experience into inspiration and a new startling perception of reality. "Nettel's eye...gives rise to a tension, subtle but persistent, that immerses us in an uncomfortable reality, disquieting, even disturbing--a gaze that illuminates her prose like an alien sun shining down on our world." --Valeria Luiselli, author of Sidewalks and Faces in the Crowd "It has been a long time since I've found in the literature of my generation a world as personal and untransferable as that of Guadalupe Nettel." --Juan Gabriel Vasquez, author of The Sound of Things Falling "Nettel reveals the subliminal beauty within beings...and painstakingly examines the intimacies of her soul." --Magazine Litteraire "Guadalupe Nettel's storytelling power is majestic."--Typographical Era In Praise of Natural Histories "Five flawless stories..." --The New York Times "Nettel's stories are as atmospheric and emotionally battering as Checkhov's."--Asymptote"-- "From a psychoanalyst's couch, the narrator looks back on her bizarre childhood--in which she was born with a birth defect into a family intent on fixing it--having somehow survived the emotional havoc she went through. And survive she did, but not unscathed. This intimate narrative echoes the voice of the narrator's younger self: a sharp, sensitive girl who is keen to life's gifts and hardships. With bare language and smart humor, both delicate and unafraid, the narrator strings a strand of touching stories together in a portrait of an unconventional childhood that crushed her, scarred her, mended her, tore her apart and ultimately made her whole"--