The Name of the Rose. An evergreen read.

Giannangeli

Brother William of Baskerville, like the hound Sherlock Holmes encountered, and the novice Adso of Melk, also a novice like Dr. Watson, cross passes and mountains not for a trip, but to reach the foot of the Benedictine abbey, home to a library that is the pride of medieval Christianity. They are there, one to learn from his Master, and the Franciscan Master, an inquisitor in a distant and unlamented time, to support his followers in a theological dispute with the terrible Bernard Gui. They would never have imagined that the second book of Aristotle's Poetics, the one dedicated to comedy after the first, which to this day remains the benchmark for Greek tragedy—a book that doesn't actually exist (or does it?)—would leave behind a trail of brothers murdered under the most fantastical circumstances. Of course you recognized it: it's "The Name of the Rose," Umberto Eco's first novel, which, beneath the veneer of a thriller, hides a writing essay, a philosophical treatise, a theological compendium, and a summation of much more. And yes, it's also a splendid and evergreen summer read, 45 years after its publication.