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Umberto Eco: A Library of the World

The Italian journalist, critic, philosopher, professor of semiotics, medievalist, bibliophile, and best-selling novelist, Umberto Eco (1932-2016) takes us on a journey through his Milanese library of 50,000 volumes, and, more impressively, the library of his mind. Best known for his novel, The Name of the Rose, Eco is a vastly prolific, witty, and original thinker — and talker — who holds forth on topics as wildly diverse as the value of reading low-brow books, the origins of fascism, the psychology of conspiracy theorists, reading on paper versus digitally, the importance of discarding useless memories, truth versus lies, great fakes, and brilliant mistakes in history. “To be intellectually curious is to be alive. And believe me, a lot of people are not alive.” – Umberto Eco. Watch trailer

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Nine Books That Will Actually Make You Laugh

Let’s be honest: What passes for funny in book marketing falls beneath the standard just about everywhere else. The number of published works that say “Hilarious!” on their cover but turn out to be merely quirky—or the dreaded wacky—is enough to make a reader cynical. Read more

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Science Fiction From Latin America, With Zombie Dissidents and Aliens in the Amazon

The writing, in Spanish and Portuguese, is radical and idiosyncratic, teeming with technoshamans and futuristic Indigenous aesthetics while also influenced by the region’s European and African heritages. Troubled histories and the urgency of the present inspire it, too, with themes of colonization, the climate crisis and migration. Read more

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