Cosmicomics (Italo Calvino) are Fairytales about Physics

These are capital L literature but also light and beautiful: each piece is a reflection and humanization of some gigantic cosmic phenomena, there is a story about how annoying it was to live so close to one’s neighbors before the big bang, one about how communication with someone on another planet becomes a hassle as the universe expands, in one story the only numbers the characters know are π and e because discrete quantities haven’t been invented yet. It’s all delightful and silly and perfect.