The year is 1327. Franciscans in a wealthy Italian abbey are suspected of heresy, and Brother William of Baskerville arrives to investigate. When his delicate mission is suddenly overshadowed by seven bizarre deaths, Brother William turns detective. He collects evidence, deciphers secret symbols and coded manuscripts, and digs into the eerie labyrinth of the abbey where extraordinary things are happening under the cover of night. A spectacular popular and critical success, "The Name of the Rose" is not only a narrative of a murder investigation but an astonishing chronicle of the Middle Ages.

Si les cultures ont été une idée du beau et de l'art, rares sont celles qui l'ont théorisée de façon explicite et l'ont considérée globalement, le beau et l'art étant liés, au point de penser en termes d'"esthétique". Ce concept est né en Europe au XVIIIe siècle et l'histoire des idées ne s'est guère intéréssée aux théories du beau et de l'art avant cette période. L'époque médiévale a longtemps été victime de cette erreur.
Depuis cinquante ans, les choses ont changé : on a découvert le Moyen Âge, sa richesse, ses fascinantes spéculations sur la beauté, le plaisir esthétique et le goût, le beau naturel ou artistique, les rapports entre l'art et les autres activités humaines.

The year is 1327. Franciscans in a wealthy Italian abbey are suspected of heresy, and Brother William of Baskerville arrives to investigate. When his delicate mission is suddenly overshadowed by seven bizarre deaths, Brother William turns detective. He collects evidence, deciphers secret symbols and coded manuscripts, and digs into the eerie labyrinth of the abbey where extraordinary things are happening under the cover of night. A spectacular popular and critical success, "The Name of the Rose" is not only a narrative of a murder investigation but an astonishing chronicle of the Middle Ages. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

An international sensation and winner of the Premio Strega and the Prix Médicis Etranger awards, this enthralling medieval murder mystery "explodes with pyrotechnic inventions, literally as well as figuratively" (The New York Times)
The year is 1327. Benedictines in a wealthy Italian abbey are suspected of heresy, and Brother William of Baskerville arrives to investigate. When his delicate mission is suddenly overshadowed by seven bizarre deaths, Brother William turns detective. His tools are the logic of Aristotle, the theology of Aquinas, the empirical insights of Roger Bacon -- all sharpened to a glistening edge by wry humor and a ferocious curiosity. He collects evidence, deciphers secret symbols and coded manuscripts, and digs into the eerie labyrinth of the abbey, where "the most interesting things happen at night."
"Like the labyrinthine library at its heart, this brilliant novel has many cunning passages and secret chambers . . . Fascinating . . . ingenious . . . dazzling." --Newsweek

It is the story of a 17th century Italian nobleman who is the only survivor of a shipwreck during a fierce storm. He finds himself washed up on an abandoned ship in a harbour through which, he convinces himself, runs the International Date Line. Although he can see land, his inability to swim leaves him marooned and he begins to reminisce about his life and his love. He becomes obsessed about his allegedly evil twin brother, who is split from his own persona through a process reminiscent of the doppelganger effect, and thus accusing him of all the bad things that happened in his life. The brother takes blame mainly for his bad choices and is present to sweeten the disappointments of life . Through this reminiscence he becomes convinced that all his troubles will end, if only he can reach the land. The story is told from the point of view of a modern editor who has sorted through the man's papers. Exactly how the papers were preserved and eventually handed down to the editor remains a point of conjecture.

Yambo, a sixtyish rare-book dealer who lives in Milan, has suffered a loss of memory-he can remember the plot of every book he has ever read, every line of poetry, but he no longer knows his own name, doesn't recognize his wife or his daughters, and remembers nothing about his parents or his childhood. In an effort to retrieve his past, he withdraws to the family home somewhere in the hills between Milan and Turin. There, in the sprawling attic, he searches through boxes of old newspapers, comics, records, photo albums, and adolescent diaries. And so Yambo relives the story of his generation: Mussolini, Catholic education and guilt, Josephine Baker, Flash Gordon, Fred Astaire. His memories run wild, and the life racing before his eyes takes the form of a graphic novel. Yambo struggles through the frames to capture one simple, innocent image: that of his first love. A fascinating, abundant new novel-wide-ranging, nostalgic, funny, full of heart-from the incomparable Eco.

From Publishers Weekly
Just in time for the new millennium comes this enormous, amply illustrated compilation of 23 essays on aspects of time from experts in various disciplines, among them history and historiography, music, geology, literary criticism, anthropology, religion and the history of engineering. The venerated art historian E.H. Gombrich contributes a compact "History of Anniversaries," from the so-called "jubilee" of the Hebrew Bible through a famous 1769 "Shakespeare Jubilee" and on to our present glut of commemorations. John MacDonald's intriguing "Inuit Time" explains how traditional cultures of the North American Arctic taught their children to wake up early in the morning, and how newly Christian tribal communities (who had to know which day was the Sabbath) grappled with the alien concept of weeks. Lorne Campbell describes some temporal problems of portraiture, as when a slow-working painter finds that her subject's appearance has changed over multiple sittings. Jonathan Betts outlines "The Growth of Modern Timekeeping: From Pendulums to Atoms." And Umberto Eco zips from St. Augustine to the modern philosophy of language to the Millennium Bug in a typically provocative foreword. Three hundred color pictures and photos, many with long explanatory blurbs, portray such time-related items as Renaissance sundials and klepsydras (water-clocks), the Hindu god Vishnu (creator and destroyer of world and time) and a bizarre French clock from 1795, which indicated not only 60-minute hours and 24-hour days, but also the short-lived revolutionary system of decimal time, whose 10 hours a day had 100 minutes each. The entire enjoyable and visually impressive volume is timed to coincide with an exhibit at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England, where the year 2000 will officially begin. (Oct.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Prepared in conjunction with an international exhibition sponsored by the Royal Observatory at Greenwich and the National Maritime Museum, this handsome and informative volume is filled with dozens of enticing perspectives on the subject of time--certainly an appropriate topic at a time of millennial madness. Essays by Eco, John MacDonald, Anthony Aveni, Ken Arnold, E.H. Gombrich, and others are organized into categories that focus on the creation, measurement, depiction, experience, and end of time. Within each section, there is much to learn about the impact of time on almost every aspect of existence--from calendars and timepieces, to major civilizations and their rituals, to art, music, science, and prophecy. In addition to many perspectives on our relationship to time, there is also a rich education in history, philosophy, and world culture here. The captions that accompany the many superb color photos and art reproductions are particularly informative. Essential for academic and humanities collections.
-Carol J. Binkowski, Bloomfield, NJ
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

全书共分五章,分别阐述了符号学的基本术语、概念及理论体系,并对“代码”、“符号功能”、“讯息”、“文本”、“超编码与低编码”等问题进行了富有创造性的探讨。

Umberto Eco is a famous scholar-novelist, and Cardinal Martini is a famous scholar-bishop. Eco is an urbane ex-Catholic. Cardinal Martini is an urbane prince of the Church. Belief or Nonbelief?, a little book of eight chapters, is a dialogue between them, first published by an Italian newspaper. Each author writes four alternating chapters addressing the hopes of humanity at the dawn of a new millennium, the question of the beginning of human life, the role of the Church, and how we can know Truth. Belief or Non Belief? is a good idea, but it suffers from a couple of problems. The format and content are too obviously recycled newspaper articles. While the engaging, popular style is welcome, the necessary brevity of each chapter means arguments cannot be developed, and the reader is left vaguely dissatisfied. It would have been better if the authors had expanded the project. Both men write well in a sophisticated and polite Italian style that is entertaining at first, but it soon sounds artificial to the English reader. Finally, there are some difficulties in translation: for example, "illumination" is used instead of "enlightenment" and "layman" is consistently used where "non-Catholic" is probably intended. Despite these criticisms, Belief or Nonbelief? is a sharp little book giving a fresh perspective on age-old questions. --Dwight Longenecker

Le gai savoir : rarement l’expression nietzschéenne se sera aussi bien appliquée qu’à ce livre… sur les livres ! Du papyrus au fichier électronique, nous traversons deux mille ans d’histoire du livre à travers une discussion à la fois érudite et humoristique, savante et subjec-tive, dialectique et anecdotique, curieuse et goûteuse. On y parcourt les temps et les lieux, les personnes réelles s’y mêlent aux personnages de fiction, on y fait l’éloge de la bêtise, on y analyse la passion du collectionneur, les raisons pour lesquelles telle époque engendre des chefs-d’œuvre, la manière dont fonctionnent la mémoire et le classement d’une bibliothèque. On y explique pourquoi « les poules ont mis un siècle pour apprendre à ne pas traverser la route » ou comment « notre connaissance du passé est due à des crétins, des imbéciles ou des adversaires ». Bref, on s’y amuse de la « furia littéraire » de deux passionnés qui nous entraînent dans leur folle farandole dont chaque tour surprend, distrait, enseigne. En ces temps d’obscurantisme galopant, c’est peut-être le plus bel hommage qui se puisse imaginer à la cul-ture de l’esprit, et l’antidote le plus efficace au désenchantement.

讀書、品書、藏書、論書、贈書、買書、愛書、借書、賣書、焚書、禁書……
我們生命裡的重要時刻都有書的蹤影，誰說你能輕易擺脫書的？
緣起緣滅，書聚書散，這是書的命運，沒什麼好說的。但不管怎麼散，總也有一、二本是一路相隨，最後才分手道別的。這種書不多，需得智慧滿溢，耐讀耐思索才行。讀者諸君手邊若還沒有，容我提醒，你正要看的這本即是，千萬不要擺脫！──傅月庵──
本書的主題很特別，源自於艾可小時候被追問的一句話：「告訴我，小安伯托，你看書是想知道書裡頭有什麼，還是因為你喜歡看書？」
多年來，艾可深深地思索自己和書本的關係，並發覺書的種種影響：書籍紙張單純的香氣滋養，竟然能讓人定心安神。
一個書櫃就像是一群活生生的朋友，孤單沮喪時總能在它們身上得到溫暖。
而夜晚在圖書館工作的氛圍，更讓他有了《玫瑰的名字》裡圖書館謀殺案的想法……
不過，身為愛書人也是有煩惱的：電子書會改變我們的閱讀習慣嗎？紙本書的未來將會如何呢？
那些被人們遺忘的書，隔了幾個世代之後還有重新出頭的機會嗎？
有了網路上天下地豐富的資料之後，還需要看書嗎？
該如何決定書櫃的秩序，把某一本書放在另一本書的旁邊？
當人死了之後，那些心愛的藏書又該何去何從呢？
為了要討論書的過去、現在和未來，文壇大師艾可於是和影壇大師卡里耶爾有了跨界的閱讀交流，而他們兩位作為愛書人、收藏家和研究者的獨到觀點，也讓這本書成為所有「讀者」都絕對不能錯過、穿越古今書史的精采即興演出！

In this book, we accompany Umberto Eco as he explores the intricacies of fictional form and method. Using examples ranging from fairy tales and Flaubert, Poe and Mickey Spillane, Eco draws us in by means of a novelist's techniques, making us his collaborators in the creation of his text and in the investigation of some of fiction's most basic mechanisms.

The book is as intellectually exciting as it is instructive, and I recommend it highly to all readers who care seriously about how we come to know the things we think we know.

A work more disturbing than fiction from "the father of graphic novels" (New York Times).
Will Eisner, the great American master of comics, has undertaken what he regards as his most powerful work yet. The Plot examines the outrageous fabrication of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which purports to be the actual blueprint by Jewish leaders to take over the world. Hatched as an anti-Semitic plot by the tsar's secret police to deflect widespread criticism of the government, the Protocols, first published in 1905, succeeded beyond the propagandistic ambitions of its originators; the lie became an internationally accepted truth. Presenting a pageant of historical figures including Tsar Nicholas II, Henry Ford, and Adolf Hitler, Eisner exposes the twisted history of the Protocols from nineteenth-century Russia to modern-day Klan members to Islamic fundamentalists. The Plot unravels one of the most devastating hoaxes of the twentieth century.

作者：安伯托‧艾可（Umberto Eco）
全球知名小說家、哲學家、歷史學家、文學評論家、美學家、記號語言學權威
《美的歷史》、《醜的歷史》、《無盡的名單》、《玫瑰的名字》等書作者
安伯托‧艾可（Umberto Eco），留給全世界讀者的最後人文藝術巨作
集知識、藝術、美學、想像於一書的經典作品
從遠古到現代‧人類想像力的藝術史
地平說、烏龜說、對蹠點
所羅門王聖殿、示巴女王之國
無頭人、大腳人、半獸人
亞特蘭提斯之謎與姆大陸
聖杯傳奇、尤利西斯歸國記
安伯托‧艾可透過《異境之書》
引領讀者進入一則又一則的神話傳說、傳奇幻境！
人類對這世界充滿了好奇心和理想性，總想前往未知的地方一探究竟；如果是雙腳難以抵達或者根本無法抵達之處，就交給無拘無束的心智想像去冒險，填補地圖上的空白，也為這世界灌注熱情和理想。
從遠古到近代，不論是文字記載或口述傳說，都充滿無數關於奇境、異域、理想國、失落的大陸、奇人異獸與遠方族群的傳說，歷代藝術家也盡情發揮想像力，將這些傳說的境域繪成圖像，滿足人們的好奇心。
義大利中世紀藝術史大師安伯托‧艾可蒐羅數百幅關於虛構之地與神話世界的圖像，將它們的傳說與故事娓娓道來，呈現人類想像力和世界觀的變化歷程，兼具趣味性、藝術性及知識性。