If on a Winter's Night a Traveler (1982)

The desire to finish a book becomes the engine of an increasingly ridiculous adventure. Two readers pursue missing continuations through translators, publishers and conspiracies, while Calvino keeps offering tantalising new beginnings. The joke works because each interruption makes you want to read on. William Weaver's English translation preserves that teasing address to the reader; come for the pleasure of being led astray, rather than the completion of every embedded story.