Umberto Eco

Brother William's search for heresy in a 14th-century Italian abbey is interrupted by seven bizarre deaths in seven terrifying days. In 1327, Brother William of Baskerville is sent to investigate charges of heresy against Franciscan monks at a wealthy Italian abbey but finds his mission overshadowed by seven bizarre murders.

"19th-century Europe--from Turin to Prague to Paris--abounds with the ghastly and the mysterious. Jesuits plot against Freemasons. In Italy, republicans strangle priests with their own intestines. In France, during the Paris Commune, people eat mice, plan bombings and rebellions in the streets, and celebrate Black Masses. Every nation has its own secret service, perpetrating conspiracies and even massacres. There are false beards, false lawyers, false...

Three editors conspire to devise a plan of their own about European history. As they feed all the information into their computer, they think it is a terrific joke--until people begin to mysteriously disappear.

Collects short essays from the author that reflect on the changing modern world, touching on such topics as popular culture, politics, being seen, conspiracies, the old and the young, new technologies, mass media, racism, and good manners.

By the time Umberto Eco published his best-selling novel The Name of the Rose, he was one of Italy's most celebrated intellectuals, a distinguished academic and the author of influential works on semiotics. Some years before that, in 1977, Eco published a little book for his students, How to Write a Thesis, in which he offered useful advice on all the steps involved in researching and writing a thesis -- from choosing a topic to organizing a work...

Estamos en marzo de 1897, en París, espiando desde las primeras páginas de esta magnífica novela a un hombre de sesenta y siete años que escribe sentado a una mesa, en una habitación abarrotada de muebles: he aquí al capitán Simonini, un piamontés afincado en la capital francesa, que desde muy joven se dedica al noble arte de crear documentos falsos. Hombre de pocas palabras, misógino y glotón impenitente, el capitán se inspira en los folletines...