Some books don’t ask you to follow a story. They just sit with you for a while, like a quiet guest. Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino is one of those books.
It’s not new. It was published in 1972. It’s not long either—you could finish it in a few hours if you really wanted to. But that’s not how it works. This is a book you read slowly, without rushing, maybe one short piece at a time. You open it, read about a strange city that may or may not exist, and then close the book and keep thinking about it.
Marco Polo speaks to Kublai Khan. He tells him about the cities he’s seen. Or says he’s seen. Each city has a name, a pattern, something that makes it stand out. But none of them feel like actual places. What they describe is more personal—memory, routine, loss, repetition, hope.
I read this book while I was in between places. Not quite settled, not quite uprooted either. And the way Calvino wrote about cities made me stop and think: not about geography, but about the emotional shape of places. How some cities stay with you long after you’ve left. How others seem to erase themselves while you’re still there.
Some of the cities in the book sound familiar, even though they’re fictional. A city built on memory. One where the streets are shaped by desire. Another where everything looks the same but changes constantly. You start to recognize these places—not on a map, but in your own past.
If you’ve lived in many cities—or even just left one behind—this book feels different. Not poetic in a flowery way. Not clever just to be clever. More like someone put into words what you’ve been feeling all along but couldn’t quite explain.
This isn’t a book to finish and forget. It’s a book you keep near you and open when your mind is already somewhere else. It doesn’t offer advice. It doesn’t promise clarity. It just reminds you that cities affect people. Sometimes they comfort. Sometimes they erase you. And sometimes, they hold a version of you that no longer exists.
If you’ve ever wondered what a place has done to you—how it’s shaped your habits, your thoughts, your version of yourself—this book gets it.
I’m not writing this to recommend a book. I’m writing it because Invisible Cities made me realize how quietly cities work on us. How we collect them inside ourselves. And how they never really go away.
