if on a winter's night a traveler

I believe books fall into one of three categories:
1) trite and boring
2) really well-done and interesting, yet unoriginal
3) masterpieces of originality and beauty.
I prefer to choose books that fall in the third category, but I fail as often as I succeed.
Here, we have a masterpiece.
Okay, I know I am a little behind the times here, raving about a book published in 1979. But this title definitely deserves a little dusting off the shelf.
Italo Calvino's If on a winter's night a traveler is engaging in a meta-meta-narrative postmodern-before-postmodernity-really-existed kind of way. Don't misconstrue my meaning-this book is only as cerebral as you want it to be. The basic premise is a story of a Reader in search of a novel that is interrupted repeatedly, only to be replaced by a different, equally addictive book.
With themes of uncertainty, miscomunication, and mystery threaded throughout, if on a winter's night a traveler

is a unified whole, despite a structure that breaks it up into (depending on how you look at it) two or 11 different books. The successful use of the second-person is a breath of fresh literary air. Of note to writer-readers, Calvino employs a technique of talking about writing in the narrative that is not only fascinating, but potentially quite useful.
Apart from the more serious, critical aspects of the novel, it is just plain enjoyable. And that is the true mark of a masterpiece.