Six Memos for the Next Millennium and over 360,000 other books are available for Amazon Kindle � Amazon�s new wireless reading device. Learn more

Quantity:

Express Checkout with PayPhrase

What's this? | Create PayPhrase

More Buying Choices

69 used & new from $1.69

Have one to sell? Sell yours here

Share with Friends

Share your own customer images

Look inside this book

Start reading Six Memos for the Next Millennium on your Kindle in under a minute. Don�t have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here.

Six Memos for the Next Millennium/the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures 1985-86 (Vintage International) (Paperback)

~ (Author)

4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (14 customer reviews)

List Price:	$13.00
Price:	$9.10 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details
You Save:	$3.90 (30%)
	o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o

In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.

Want it delivered Monday, November 23? Choose One-Day Shipping at checkout. Details

30 new from $7.25 37 used from $1.69 2 collectible from $13.00

Formats		Amazon Price	New from	Used from
Kindle Edition $9.10 Available for download now. Published February 11, 2009	Kindle Edition, February 11, 2009	$9.10	--	--
Hardcover $17.94 In Stock. Published February 29, 1988	Hardcover, February 29, 1988	$17.94	$7.00	$2.02
	See # more hardcovers
	Show fewer hardcovers
Paperback $9.10 In Stock. Published August 30, 1993	Paperback, August 30, 1993	$9.10	$7.25	$1.69
	See # more paperbacks
	Show fewer paperbacks

Frequently Bought Together

Price For All Three: $29.26

Show availability and shipping details

This item: Six Memos for the Next Millennium/the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures 1985-86 (Vintage International) by Patrick Creagh
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details
Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details
If on a winter's night a traveler by Italo Calvino
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

The Uses of Literature

by Patrick Creagh

$11.18

Why Read the Classics?

by Italo Calvino

4.5 out of 5 stars (4) $11.90

Invisible Cities

by Italo Calvino

4.5 out of 5 stars (92) $10.08

Difficult Loves

by Italo Calvino

4.5 out of 5 stars (8) $10.08

Italian Folktales

by Italo Calvino

4.8 out of 5 stars (22) $16.50

› Explore similar items

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Italo Calvino cast his lofty thoughts toward the pending millennium long before the rest of us. Now that the zeitgeist has caught up with him, it seems a good time to revisit his Six Memos for the Next Millennium, an investigation into the literary values that he wished to bequeath to future generations. Calvino, the author of Invisible Cities, If on a Winter's Night a Traveler, and other postmodern fictional works, was to deliver these five "memos" (there was to be a sixth) as Harvard's Charles Eliot Norton Lectures in 1985-86, but he died before doing so. These lectures are dense, rigorous, and seemingly full of contradiction. The first is a paean to lightness (though "light like a bird," as Paul Valéry wrote, "and not like a feather"). Lightness is followed by quickness (without "presum[ing] to deny the pleasures of lingering"), exactitude, visibility, and multiplicity. The perfect antidote to writerly laziness.

From Publishers Weekly

At the time of his death in 1985, Calvino was preparing to give the Norton Lectures at Harvard; this volume collects the texts completed at the time of his death, which are delightful, penetrating examinations of the literary experience.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

Paperback: 128 pages
Publisher: Vintage (August 31, 1993)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0679742379
ISBN-13: 978-0679742371
Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.1 x 0.3 inches
Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (14 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #79,231 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
Popular in these categories: (What's this?)
#30 in Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > Italian
#51 in Books > Literature & Fiction > History & Criticism > Criticism & Theory > Semiotics

Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

More About the Authors

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Patrick Creagh

Italo Calvino

Look Inside This Book

Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover

Citations (learn more)

100 books cite this book:

Understanding Italo Calvino (Understanding Modern European and Latin American Literature) by Beno Weiss on 10 pages
Secret of the Muses Retold: Classical Influences on Italian Authors of the Twentieth Century by John T. Kirby on 6 pages
The Cambridge Companion to the Italian Novel (Cambridge Companions to Literature) by Peter Bondanella on 6 pages
39 Microlectures: In Proximity of Performance by Matthew Goulish on 4 pages
The Poethical Wager by Joan Retallack on 4 pages

See all 100 books citing this book

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

	88% buy the item featured on this page: Six Memos for the Next Millennium/the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures 1985-86 (Vintage International) 4.8 out of 5 stars (14) $9.10
	5% buy Invisible Cities 4.5 out of 5 stars (92) $10.08
	4% buy If on a winter's night a traveler 4.2 out of 5 stars (140) $10.08
	3% buy Cosmicomics 4.5 out of 5 stars (34) $10.08

Explore similar items

Tags Customers Associate with This Product

(What's this?)

Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.

italo calvino(5)

literary theory(2)

literature(1)

millennium(1)

next(1)

Agree with these tags?

Customer Reviews

14 Reviews

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

Average Customer Review

4.8 out of 5 stars (14 customer reviews)

Share your thoughts with other customers:

Create your own review

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars for Six Memos, June 29, 2000

By	Mark Valentine (Port Angeles, WA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Six Memos for the Next Millennium (Hardcover)

My interest in reading this collection of essays stems from a curiousity about narrative structure. I found that, while Calvino writes candid insertions about his own works, and while he writes with great fluency of ancient, medieval, contemporary world writers, the power of this short book lies in his erudite observations and keen, bits of wisdom. Here's a sample: "Saving time is a good thing because the more time we save, the more we can afford to lose" (p. 46), and this one, "Were I to choose an auspicious image for the new millennium, I would choose this one: The sudden agile leap of the poet-philosopher who raises himself above the weight of the world, showing that with all his gravity he has the secret of lightness, and that what many consider to be the vitality of the times--noisy, aggressive, revving and roaring--belongs to the realm of death, like a cemetary for rusty, old cars" (p. 12).

Calvino writes about five different qualities of literature: Lightness, Quickness, Exactitude, Visibility, and Multiplicity (he had intended to write a sixth chapter on Consistency, before his untimely death). He examines these qualities closely, using his own facile language as the medium.

Read it, by all means.

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Guidebook for Artists of Every Discipline, June 16, 1998

By A Customer

Calvino offers us a bag of jewels with these five essays on the principle qualities that will carry great writing into the next century. The lessons learned from "Lightness," "Quickness," "Exactitude," "Visibility," and "Multiplicity" can be applied in any creative situation. They add strength to my own compositional efforts, but even more, the multi-faceted richness of Calvino's prose and Creagh's translation is something to savor and rejoice in. Even in his essays, Calvino is a storyteller, and as always his characters are the moods and motives of the people at large, as well as simply people themselves. Whether this is your first or fiftieth time reading this little book, the rush of inspiration that will sweep over you is not to be stemmed. Buy it, read it, write in it, draw lines and circle your favorite words and sentences. This is a book to imprint into your mind.

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Masterful thought provoking and inspiring essays, October 20, 1999

By	Lee "bothast" (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Six Memos for the Next Millennium (Hardcover)

This is truly one of the greatest books I have ever read. Inspires and helps generate new thoughts and ideas. Calvino was truly a master. This could be read over and over for a lifetime.

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review

› See all 14 customer reviews...

Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars A poet's poet lectures
Until I read about Italo Calvino's brilliance in Umberto Ecco's Six Walks in the Fictional Woods, his works remained on bookstore shelves as clouds hang in the sky. Read more

Published 5 months ago by Martin J. Plax

5.0 out of 5 stars A portable philosophy . . .
Writing, as a true art (a "techne" in Aristotle's time), has not always been a universally accepted idea. Read more

Published 10 months ago by Ryan Werner

4.0 out of 5 stars Something to Hold Onto
Six Memos for the Next Millennium is a collection of lectures Italo Calvino had intended to deliver late in his lifetime. Read more

Published 20 months ago by Billy Lombardo

4.0 out of 5 stars Calvino manifesto
This book is a collection of talks on writing Calvino was preparing as a series of documents specifying some important keys of literature that he felt needed to be recorded as... Read more

Published on September 16, 2007 by Mr. Richard K. Weems

5.0 out of 5 stars Five Illuminating Literary Values
I found my copy of this small but elegantly written gem of a book in our local second-hand bookshop. Read more

Published on January 4, 2006 by Gopal Ramasammy-Cook

5.0 out of 5 stars The infinite writing
In the last chapter of this meditation on writing Calvino writes about the value of ' multiplicity'. Read more

Published on December 17, 2005 by Shalom Freedman

5.0 out of 5 stars il futurismo
A new italian Futurist Manifesto, but this time a good one.

Published on August 17, 2001 by Dane Larsen

5.0 out of 5 stars nurturing concepts for all creative genres
It was a an Italian virtuoso contrabassist who told me to read these Lectures. Stefano plays all the arduously difficult new music literature for the contrabass. Read more

Published on July 20, 2000 by scarecrow

5.0 out of 5 stars Fluent as a novel
Sure you never read an essay written in such a fluent style. It is like a friendly conversation on a sofa, with one of the best Italian writer and critic af the century.

Published on May 7, 1999

4.0 out of 5 stars Everyone who writes or reads fiction should have this book.
There are only five memos, unfortunately. Calvino died before completing the sixth. But the five we do have are treasures of insight and intellect, giving shape to qualities of... Read more

Published on July 14, 1998

› See all 14 customer reviews...

.jsOffDisplayBlock { display: block; } .jsOffDisplayInline { display: inline; } .jsOffVisibility { visibility: visible; } .jsOnDisplayBlock { display: none; } .jsOnDisplayNoneBlock { display: block; } .jsOnDisplayNoneInline { display: inline; } .jsOnDisplayInline { display: none; } .jsOnVisibility { visibility: hidden; } .jqOnDisplayBlock { display: none; } .jqOnDisplayInline { display: none; } .jqOnVisibility { visibility: hidden; } .jqOnDisplayNoneBlock { display: block; } .jqOnDisplayNoneInline { display: inline; }

Customer Discussions

This product's forum

Discussion	Replies	Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight

Start a new discussion

Topic:

First post:

Receive e-mail when new posts are made

Prompts for sign-in

Guidelines

Active discussions in related forums

Discussion	Replies	Latest Post
textbook textbook scam	77	3 hours ago
literature Name three of your all time favorite books.	97	1 day ago
textbook Textbooks for Kindle DX?	63	2 days ago
literature Intellectual thrillers?	35	5 days ago
textbook Anyone need psychology testbook- trying to sell a used copy	2	6 days ago
literature Classic Literature	13	8 days ago
literature On Faulkner?	24	9 days ago