How to Travel with a Salmon & Other Essays

Though some of the essays may seem a bit dated, they are ALL very clever and worthwhile. I suggest this lighthearted book to anyone, particularly to fans of Eco.I've read both _Foucault's Pendulum_ and _The Name of the Rose_, so I can fully appreciate Eco's genius, his careful research into topics, and his knack for expressing all the details in an interesting and captivating way. This book is COMPLETELY different than what I'm used to with Eco, and *I love it*!

This book is absolutly hilarious, and gives the reader a view of the world I'm sure few of us have even considered. The obvious has never been so funny and philosophy never so modernly witty.It's a fantastic work of mind-bending, "laugh-out-loud" wonder.Umberto Eco has created a philosophic masterpiece for the masses.A MUST READ!!!

...or the logical illogic behind everyday life. ..Umberto Eco is one of my favorite writers/thinkers and I was well pleased when he allowed some of his followers like me off the hook with a down to earth, easy to follow book. Sharp witted and clearly with tongue placed firmly in cheek, Eco skewers human habits and modern day customs with a faux/not faux rationalism...sometimes with the same stance you'd imagine he'd lecture a graduate course in the theories of semiotics.But, fear not, dear reader, Dr. Eco is just having a little fun. An essay entitled "How to Be a Television Host", turns out to be a parody on how the powers-that-be who produce entertainment/shows/movies must think the audiences are really dumb. Even though he kinda went overboard with applause and the fictional Bonga nation (somewhere "between Terra Incognita and the Isle of the Blest"), it is truth. He even parodies himself and academicians like himself in the piece 'Three Owls in a Chest Drawer' (in which two more of my favorites--Erica Jong and Camille Paglia--get a nod) which ends with a wry punchline "This, and only this, is what Poetry demands of us."Eco says one should never fear exaggeration in writing parody. Well...truly, he is fearless in these essays.

In this hysterical collection of essays, Umberto tackles everything from the Italian driver-licensing bureau to the cosmic army of the future--one that doesn't seem to be able to do anything really useful save dispatching astrograms to each other. Eco is delightful, mocking at times, right on point throughout. Whether you want to know the truth about talk-show hosts, how to deal with soccar fans, taxi-drivers and, well, salmon, how to buy useless gadgets, or simply want to hear the secret rules concerning library organization (no bathrooms), how to compile toilet-paper inventories, you'll love this book. The book is enjoyable throughout with its often bizarrely funny juxtapostition of the mundane and the learned.

You read these essays and you know what Eco is talking about. Those thoughts you can't articulate when you're on the train, but you know they mean something--Eco has read your mind. These experiences, whether or not you are also a world-travelling world-famous essayist, are common to the human experience. How do you judge what is and what isn't pornography? How well do you travel with a salmon? What would happen if the Italian (and Canadian) military bureaucracies were the only survivors of Earth in a future pan-galactic civilization? And they were in charge? You will roll on the floor laughing, wince occasionally, and come away with a better understanding of yourself and your society.