Both are pretty similar in that they're more collections of existential observations rather than linear plots. Calvino's is written in the guise of Marco Polo to Kublai Khan, where he describes all the mystical cities he's discovered on his travels. The point is, he's describing Venice every time, but makes the multiple layers of human interaction that create and sustain the city, and civilisation more broadly, seem like different cities altogether.
The image in my particular favourite story has stuck with me since I first read it. He describes a city in which all the residents denote their relationships with one another by tying different coloured strings between their houses/buildings: so, say, a romantic relationship would be a red string, work a grey, familial blue, financial yellow, etc. When the city becomes too overburdened with the strings, the residents just up-sticks a bit higher up the hill, look down on their tangled knot of old strings and start again.
I'm just going to post photos of the Knausgaard story that's stuck with me the most. Only finished the book tonight, and this was one of the last ones:
Autumn is part of the Seasons Quartet, so I think I'll be stocking up. Next up is either Why I Write by George Orwell or Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari. Will probably go with Orwell on the basis of it being a good 350 pages shorter