On the Shoulders of Giants

“Magisterial lectures… Throughout his mature work Eco is on a quest for real meaning, which makes him so relevant for our times… The man proves a rare human spectacle: at once immensely erudite and genuinely humble; aware of his intellectual stature and yet self-deprecating; creator of sophisticated literary and intellectual worlds, and yet a strikingly unpretentious mind.”—Costica Bradatan, The Los Angeles Review of Books

“What makes Eco’s talks fun is his humor, penetrating insights, and truly eclectic examples of topic points. He manages to make you feel that you’re going on an esoteric adventure into secret spaces.”—John Kendall Hawkins, CounterPunch

“Eco rearranges and reconstellates his vast learning to address one huge topic after the next… The irreverence and relentless curiosity that drive these lectures [is] charming and bracing.”—Marta Figlerowicz, Public Books

“Like a collection of TED talks on philosophy and literary history, these 12 dazzling texts explore grand themes of intellectual curiosity such as beauty, secrecy, the invisible, and the sacred.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Delightful… Eco’s remarks on such broad topics as ‘Beauty’ and ‘Ugliness,’ ‘Some Revelations on Secrecy,’ and ‘Representations of the Sacred’ reveal his astonishingly wide range of interests, encompassing such varied subjects as linguistics and chemistry.”—Publishers Weekly