The Baron in the Trees

This is a delightful book, and "delightful" is not a word I toss around lightly.

From the time Cosimo Piovasco di Rondo, a young 18rh century Italian novbelman, fights with his father at lunch and leaves to live the rest of his life entirely in the trees of his family's magnificent estate, Calvino conjures a plausible magical world in which Cosimo grows to manhood with a reputtion as a great scholar, a notorious lover, and friend to both commoners and gentry.

Best read in conjunction with Calvino's The Cloven Viscount.