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The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana

Name: The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana
Rating: 3.39 (12706 reviews)
Author: Umberto Eco

Umberto Eco June 1, 2004

3.39 12.7k Ratings

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Synopsis

International bestselling and award-winning author Umberto Eco’s illustrated novel The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana is “an insidiously witty and provocative story” (Los Angeles Times).

Yambo, a sixtyish rare-book dealer who lives in Milan, has suffered a loss of memory — he can remember the plot of every book he has ever read, every line of poetry, but he no longer knows his own name, doesn’t recognize his wife or his daughters, and remembers nothing about his parents or his childhood. In an effort to retrieve his past, he withdraws to the family home somewhere in the hills between Milan and Turin.

There, in the sprawling attic, he searches through boxes of old newspapers, comics, records, photo albums, and adolescent diaries. And so Yambo relives the story of his Mussolini, Catholic education and guilt, Josephine Baker, Flash Gordon, Fred Astaire. His memories run wild, and the life racing before his eyes takes the form of a graphic novel. Yambo struggles through the frames to capture one simple, innocent that of his first love.

A fascinating, abundant novel — wide-ranging, nostalgic, funny, full of heart — from the incomparable Eco.

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The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana

Books similar to The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana

The Story of a New Name

The Story of the Lost Child

Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay

Finn

My Brilliant Friend

Tinkers

Falling Man

The Fortress of Solitude

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