How to Travel with a Salmon

How to Travel with a Salmon PDF Author: Umberto Eco
Publisher: HMH
ISBN: 0547540434
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 259

Book Description
“Impishly witty and ingeniously irreverent” essays on topics from cell phones to librarians, by the author of The Name of the Rose and Foucault’s Pendulum (The Atlantic Monthly). A cosmopolitan curmudgeon the Los Angeles Times called “the Andy Rooney of academia”—known for both nonfiction and novels that have become blockbuster New York Times bestsellers—Umberto Eco takes readers on “a delightful romp through the absurdities of modern life” (Publishers Weekly) as he journeys around the world and into his own wildly adventurous mind. From the mundane details of getting around on Amtrak or in the back of a cab, to reflections on computer jargon and soccer fans, to more important issues like the effects of mass media and consumer civilization—not to mention the challenges of trying to refrigerate an expensive piece of fish at an English hotel—this renowned writer, semiotician, and philosopher provides “an uncanny combination of the profound and the profane” (San Francisco Chronicle). “Eco entertains with his clever reflections and with his unique persona.” —Kirkus Reviews Translated from the Italian by William Weaver

Misreadings

Misreadings PDF Author: Umberto Eco
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 9780156607520
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 196

Book Description
Playful parodies by the author of The Name of the Rose and Foucault's Pendulum. Here, Eco pokes fun at the oversophisticated, overacademic, and overintellectual, and along the way makes penetrating comments about our modern mass culture and the elitist avant-garde in art in criticism.

Travels in Hyperreality

Travels in Hyperreality PDF Author: Umberto Eco
Publisher: HMH
ISBN: 0547545967
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 322

Book Description
A “scintillating collection” of essays on Disneyland, medieval times, and much more, from the author of Foucault’s Pendulum (Los Angeles Times). Collected here are some of Umberto Eco’s finest popular essays, recording the incisive and surprisingly entertaining observations of his restless intellectual mind. As the author puts it in the preface to the second edition: “In these pages, I try to interpret and to help others interpret some ‘signs.’ These signs are not only words, or images; they can also be forms of social behavior, political acts, artificial landscapes.” From Disneyland to holography and wax museums, Eco explores America’s obsession with artificial reality, suggesting that the craft of forgery has in certain cases exceeded reality itself. He examines Western culture’s enduring fascination with the middle ages, proposing that our most pressing modern concerns began in that time. He delves into an array of topics, from sports to media to what he calls the crisis of reason. Throughout these travels—both physical and mental—Eco displays the same wit, learning, and lively intelligence that delighted readers of The Name of the Rose and Foucault’s Pendulum. Translated by William Weaver

Five Moral Pieces

Five Moral Pieces PDF Author: Umberto Eco
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 0547564058
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 131

Book Description
In this prescient essay collection, the acclaimed author of Foucault’s Pendulum examines the cultural trends and perils at the dawn of the 21st century. In the last decade of the 20th century, Umberto Eco saw an urgent need to embrace tolerance and multiculturalism in the face of our world’s ever-increasing interconnectivity. At a talk delivered during the first Gulf War, he points out the absurdity of armed conflict in a globalized economy where the flow of information is unstoppable and the enemy is always behind the lines. Elsewhere, he questions the influence of the news media and identifies its contribution to our collective disillusionment with politics. In a deeply personal essay, Eco recalls his boyhood experience of Italy’s liberation from fascism. He then analyzes the universal elements of fascism, including the “cult of tradition” and a “suspicion of intellectual life.” And finally, in an open letter to an Italian cardinal, Eco reflects on a question underlying all the reflections in the book: What does it mean to be moral or ethical when one doesn't believe in God? “At just 111 pages, Five Moral Pieces packs a philosophical wallop surprising in such a slender book. Or maybe not so surprising. Eco's prose here is beautiful.”—January Magazine

Four Fish

Four Fish PDF Author: Paul Greenberg
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101442298
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 304

Book Description
“A necessary book for anyone truly interested in what we take from the sea to eat, and how, and why.” —Sam Sifton, The New York Times Book Review Acclaimed author of American Catch and The Omega Princple and life-long fisherman, Paul Greenberg takes us on a journey, examining the four fish that dominate our menus: salmon, sea bass, cod, and tuna. Investigating the forces that get fish to our dinner tables, Greenberg reveals our damaged relationship with the ocean and its inhabitants. Just three decades ago, nearly everything we ate from the sea was wild. Today, rampant overfishing and an unprecedented biotech revolution have brought us to a point where wild and farmed fish occupy equal parts of a complex marketplace. Four Fish offers a way for us to move toward a future in which healthy and sustainable seafood is the rule rather than the exception.

Stronghold

Stronghold PDF Author: Tucker Malarkey
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1984801708
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 368

Book Description
PNBA BESTSELLER • “A powerful and inspiring story. Guido Rahr’s mission to save the wild Pacific salmon leads him into adventures that make for a breathtakingly exciting read.”—Ian Frazier, author of Travels in Siberia Editors’ Choice: The New York Times Book Review • Outside Magazine • National Book Review • Forbes In the tradition of Mountains Beyond Mountains and The Orchid Thief, Stronghold is Tucker Malarkey’s eye-opening account of one of the world’s greatest fly fishermen and his crusade to protect the world’s last bastion of wild salmon. From a young age, Guido Rahr was a misfit among his family and classmates, preferring to spend his time in the natural world. When the salmon runs of the Pacific Northwest began to decline, Guido was one of the few who understood why. As dams, industry, and climate change degraded the homes of these magnificent fish, Rahr saw that the salmon of the Pacific Rim were destined to go the way of their Atlantic brethren: near extinction. An improbable and inspiring story, Stronghold takes us on a wild adventure, from Oregon to Alaska to one of the world’s last remaining salmon strongholds in the Russian Far East, a landscape of ecological richness and diversity that is rapidly being developed for oil, gas, minerals, and timber. Along the way, Rahr contends with scientists, conservationists, Russian oligarchs, corrupt officials, and unexpected allies in an attempt to secure a stronghold for the endangered salmon, an extraordinary keystone species whose demise would reverberate across the planet. Tucker Malarkey, who joins Rahr in the Russian wilderness, has written a clarion call for a sustainable future, a remarkable work of natural history, and a riveting account of a species whose future is closely linked to our own. Praise for Stronghold “This book isn’t just about fish, it’s about life itself and the fragile unseen threads that connect all creatures across this beleaguered orb we call home. Guido Rahr’s quest to save the world’s wild salmon should serve as an inspiration—and a provocation—for us all, and Tucker Malarkey’s exquisite book captures Rahr’s weird and wonderful story with poignancy, humor, and grace.”—Hampton Sides, author of In the Kingdom of Ice and Blood and Thunder “A crazy-good, intensely lived book that reads like an international thriller—only it’s our beloved salmon playing the part of diamonds or oil or gold.”—David James Duncan, author of The River Why and The Brothers K

My Venice

My Venice PDF Author: Donna Leon
Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
ISBN: 0802194036
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 201

Book Description
A collection of “entertaining . . . unapologetically opinionated” essays from the New York Times–bestselling author of the Commissario Guido Brunetti novels (The New York Times). Donna Leon has won legions of fans and waves of critical acclaim for her international bestselling mystery series featuring Venetian Commissario Guido Brunetti—not only for her intricate plots and gripping narratives, but for her insight into the culture, politics, family-life, and history of Venice. But outside of her mystery novels, Leon has also been writing essays on Venetian life and related topics for years. In My Venice and Other Essays, the best of these essays are collected: more than fifty charming and insightful works ranging in topic from battles over garbage in the canals to the troubles with rehabbing Venetian real estate. Leon shares episodes from her life, explores her love of opera, and recounts tales from in and around her country house in the mountains. With pointed observations and humor, she also explores her family history, her former life in New Jersey, and the idea of the “Italian man.” Sure to please longtime Leon fans as well as anyone who appreciates the wit and wisdom of a master wordsmith, this volume offers “an intriguing glimpse at the strong views of an exceptionally interesting and entertaining novelist” (The Seattle Times).

The Search for the Perfect Language

The Search for the Perfect Language PDF Author: Umberto Eco
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0631205101
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 406

Book Description
The idea that there once existed a language which perfectly and unambiguously expressed the essence of all possible things and concepts has occupied the minds of philosophers, theologians, mystics and others for at least two millennia. This is an investigation into the history of that idea and of its profound influence on European thought, culture and history. From the early Dark Ages to the Renaissance it was widely believed that the language spoken in the Garden of Eden was just such a language, and that all current languages were its decadent descendants from the catastrophe of the Fall and at Babel. The recovery of that language would, for theologians, express the nature of divinity, for cabbalists allow access to hidden knowledge and power, and for philosophers reveal the nature of truth. Versions of these ideas remained current in the Enlightenment, and have recently received fresh impetus in attempts to create a natural language for artificial intelligence. The story that Umberto Eco tells ranges widely from the writings of Augustine, Dante, Descartes and Rousseau, arcane treatises on cabbalism and magic, to the history of the study of language and its origins. He demonstrates the initimate relation between language and identity and describes, for example, how and why the Irish, English, Germans and Swedes - one of whom presented God talking in Swedish to Adam, who replied in Danish, while the serpent tempted Eve in French - have variously claimed their language as closest to the original. He also shows how the late eighteenth-century discovery of a proto-language (Indo-European) for the Aryan peoples was perverted to support notions of racial superiority. To this subtle exposition of a history of extraordinary complexity, Umberto Eco links the associated history of the manner in which the sounds of language and concepts have been written and symbolized. Lucidly and wittily written, the book is, in sum, a tour de force of scholarly detection and cultural interpretation, providing a series of original perspectives on two thousand years of European History. The paperback edition of this book is not available through Blackwell outside of North America.

Apocalypse Postponed

Apocalypse Postponed PDF Author: Umberto Eco
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780253208712
Category : Italy
Languages : en
Pages : 227

Book Description
An erudite and witty collection of Umberto Eco's essays on mass culture from the 1960s through the 1980s, including major pieces which have not been translated into English before. The discussion is framed by opposing characterizations of current intellectuals as apocalyptic and opposed to all mass culture, or as integrated intellectuals, so much a part of mass culture as to be unaware of serving it. Organized in four main parts, "Mass Culture: Apocalypse Postponed", "Mass Media and the Limits of Communication", "The Rise and Fall of Counter-Cultures", and "In Search of Italian Genius", Eco looks at a variety of topics and cultural productions, including the world of Charlie Brown, distinctions between highbrow and lowbrow, the future of literacy, Chinese comic strips, whether countercultures exist, Fellini's Ginger and Fred, and the Italian genius industry.

Chronicles of a Liquid Society

Chronicles of a Liquid Society PDF Author: Umberto Eco
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 0544974484
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 319

Book Description
A posthumous collection of essays by the great novelist, essayist, literary critic, and philosopher Umberto Eco
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