Currently reading
The Art of Fiction: A Guide for Writers and Readers
The Name of the Rose
Ghostwritten
To the Lighthouse
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
Perfect Wrong Note - Learning to Trust Your Musical Self
The Prince
The Varieties of Religious Experience
Twenty Questions: An Introduction to Philosophy
The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana
I read, struggled to read, half of The Mysterious Flame, then stopped. It's a frustratingly boring book by a nostalgic, older bibliophile about, surprise!, a nostalgic, older bibliophile. The story starts shortly after the protagonist suffers a sudden onset of amnesia. To reconstruct his life, he spends several days in an attic reliving his childhood through books and music.The plot has potential, but the writing is so contrived and the story moves so slowly that it comes out feeling like the book is just an excuse for Eco to both rehash his past and show off his erudition by quoting the most cheesy passages from a zillion obscure books, then tying the passages into magical and mysterious flames of memory. If you like Marcel Proust and his journeys down the never ending miles of memory lane, you might like this book. If you're a hyper-nostalgic, older bibliophile, you'll probably love this book. If you're anyone else, skip it.