Umberto Eco

Italy, 1347. While Brother William of Baskerville is investigating accusations of heresy at a wealthy abbey, his inquiries are disrupted by a series of bizarre deaths. Turning his practiced detective skills to finding the killer, he relies on logic (Aristotle), theology (Thomas Aquinas), empirical insights (Roger Bacon), and his own wry humour and ferocious curiosity. With the aid of his young apprentice, William scours the abbey, from its stables...

"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...

A self-confessed liar spins a fascinating tale of his life in this “comic and brilliantly baffling” historical novel by the author of The Name of the Rose (The Guardian, UK).
 
Constantinople, 1204. The Byzantine capital is under siege by the knights of the Fourth Crusade. Amid the carnage and confusion, one Baudolino saves a historian and high court official from certain death at the hands of...

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.

Eco's treatment demonstrates his mastery of the field of semiotics. It focuses on the twin problems of the doctrine of signs-communication and signification-and offers a highly original theory of sign production, including a carefully wrought typology of signs and modes of production.