"instead of making myself write the book I ought to write, the (“neo-realistic”) novel that was expected of me, I conjured up the book I myself would have liked to read, the sort by an unknown writer, from another age and another country, discovered in an attic."
"I have quoted this line in full because it is the last example on record of a bad sentence by Italo Calvino."
If you haven't yet, check out the audiobooks of the Abhorsen books. Tim Curry makes an excellent snarky cat with mysterious powers...