Helpful Score: 1
This is one of the funniest books I've ever read. There about 40 short essays and they are all over the map.
For instance, "How to Travel with a Salmon" deals with being given a fresh salmon when on a business trip. He puts it in the hotel refrigerator, gets charged for all the booze that he took out; and the maid takes the salmon out and refills with new booze. This repeats for 2 more days.
Some of the other essays include "How to eat ice cream" and "How to recognize a porn movie".
"Eco's assembled essays are impishly witty and ingeniously irreverent" (Atlantic Monthly)
"The perfect choice for a literate view of the small frustrations of the world" (Dallas Morning News)
For instance, "How to Travel with a Salmon" deals with being given a fresh salmon when on a business trip. He puts it in the hotel refrigerator, gets charged for all the booze that he took out; and the maid takes the salmon out and refills with new booze. This repeats for 2 more days.
Some of the other essays include "How to eat ice cream" and "How to recognize a porn movie".
"Eco's assembled essays are impishly witty and ingeniously irreverent" (Atlantic Monthly)
"The perfect choice for a literate view of the small frustrations of the world" (Dallas Morning News)
Greta short essays by Eco on a variety of subjects, similar to his "Diario minimo" columns from "Il Verri" magazine, and in imitation of his earlier collection of these columns. Some of the essays are slightly out-of-date now, being 20 years old, but all are still very readable and very funny. These essays are generally parodies of life in Europe, and of observation of Americans and other non-Italians. Those who have only read "The Name of the Rose" or "Foucault's Pendulum," or who are familiar with Eco only as semiotician and writer upon medieval art and beauty will not find much here that resembles that other work, but those interested in Eco as observer and commentator will find much to entertain them.
