Misreadings
by Umberto Eco
List Price:
Our Price: $1.99
You Save: $12.96 (87%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Umberto EcoTranslator: William Weaver
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1993-05-07
ISBN: 0156607522
Number of pages: 192
Publisher: Mariner Books
Book Reviews of Misreadings
Book Review: A Must Read: Misreadings
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a mirthful little volume by Umberto Eco, author of some very long novels, including The Name of the Rose. Misreadings is a collection of fifteen small pieces of fun. Eco was hired, in 1959, to write a monthly column for Il Verro, an Italian literary magazine. He began submitting parodies of the ponderous contents of the magazine to the magazine itself. It says something of the editors that they published them all. One is a set of internal critiques, supposedly from a publishing company, on why they're rejecting certain books as unsuitable, including the Bible ("I must say the first few hundred pages of this manuscript really hooked me...sex (lots of it), murders, massacres and so on...but as I kept reading, I realized this is actually an anthology, involving several writers...I'd suggest getting the rights to just the first few chapters, but using a different title. How about Red Sea Desperadoes?"), Homer's Odyssey ("...remember in his first book, how the Achilles-Patroclus story, with its not-so-latent homosexuality got us into trouble?"), and a dozen or so others, including refusal letters to Cervantes and Dante. Another piece is an account of Columbus discovering America, accompanied by modern-day news media and their attendant host of experts, in this case including Leonardo da Vinci, who gets short-shrift from the reporters when he becomes too technical.
Any of the selections can be read in ten or fifteen minutes. The satire is rich, at times thick, written to mock scholarship which labors on the ephemeral and a society which concerns itself with the trivial. But I read it with such pleasure partly because the satire and mockery isn't bitter or angry or malicious. Eco's Misreadings holds up a mirror and lets us see ourselves; he helps us see how silly we can sometimes be when we make more of things than they are. I'm going to put this book on the bookshelf in my bedroom, so I can pick it up frequently for a refreshing sip.
Essays Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Essays Books
Shaking a Leg: Collected Journalism and Writingsby Angela Carter
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 1998-12-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $20.66
Price in other shops:
Minerva Louise (Picture Lions)by Janet Morgan Stoeke
Picture Lions; Published: 1989-09-21; Paperback; Book
White Dynamite and Curly Kiddby Bill Martin, John Archambault
Collins; Published: 1988-08; Hardcover; Book
max's christmasby rosemary wells
Dial; Published: 1986; Hardcover; Book
Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Bookby Walker Percy
Farrar, Straus and Giroux; Published: 1983-06-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $66.99
Shadow Lines: Educational Edition, with Critical Essays by A N Kaul, Suvir Kaul, Meenakshi Mukherjee & Rajesewari Sunder rajanby Amitav Ghosh
South Asia Books/Oxford Univ Press, India; Published: 1998-06-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $29.30
The Book of Other PeoplePenguin (Non-Classics); Published: 2008-01-02; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.91
Price in other shops:
Walden and Civil Disobedience (Penguin American Library)by Henry David Thoreau
Penguin Classics; Published: 1983-08-25; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.62
Price in other shops:
The Portable Machiavelliby Niccolo Machiavelli
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 1979-01-25; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.35
Price in other shops:
Essays of E.B. Whiteby E. B. White
Joanna Cotler Books; Published: 1978-10-19; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $298.46
Similar books summaries and other product reviews
Five Moral Piecesby Umberto Eco
Mariner Books; Published: 2002-10-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.50
Price in other shops:
The Search for the Perfect Language (The Making of Europe)by Umberto Eco
Wiley-Blackwell; Published: 1997-04-16; Paperback; Book
Best price: $17.61
Price in other shops:
The Prague Cemeteryby Umberto Eco
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Trade; Published: 2011-11-08; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $13.49
Price in other shops:
Kant and the Platypus: Essays on Language and Cognitionby Umberto Eco, Alastair McEwen
Mariner Books; Published: 2000-11-09; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.20
Price in other shops:
Confessions of a Young Novelist (Richard Ellmann Lectures in Modern Literature)by Umberto Eco
Harvard University Press; Published: 2011-04-25; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $10.95
Price in other shops:
The Infinity of Lists: An Illustrated Essayby Umberto Eco
Rizzoli; Published: 2009-11-17; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $21.35
Turning Back the Clock: Hot Wars and Media Populismby Umberto Eco
Mariner Books; Published: 2008-09-22; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.01
Price in other shops:
Travels in Hyperreality (Harvest Book)by Umberto Eco
Mariner Books; Published: 1990-05-27; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.55
Price in other shops:
How to Travel with a Salmon & Other Essays (A Harvest Book)by Umberto Eco, Diane Sterling, William Weaver
Mariner Books; Published: 1995-09-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.13
Price in other shops:
Serendipities: Language and Lunacyby Umberto Eco
Mariner Books; Published: 1999-11-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.60
Price in other shops: