Happy 80th Birthday to Umberto Eco (novelist)!

from Writer's Almanac (Garrison Keillor, American Public Media):

January 5 is the 80th birthday of Umberto Eco, born in Alessandria, in the Piedmont region of Italy (1932). He's a philosopher, medievalist, literary critic, and best-selling novelist, and the Guardian calls him an "all-round brainbox."
His book, The Name of the Rose, published in Italian in 1980 and in English in 1983, became an international best-seller. His other novels include Foucault's Pendulum (1988), Mysterious Flame of the Queen Loana (2004), and most recently, The Cemetery of Prague (2010).
Eco once explained his productivity, saying: "There is a lot of space between atom and atom and electron and electron, and if we reduced the matter of the universe by eliminating all the space in between, the entire universe would be compressed into a ball. Our lives are full of interstices. [...] I can work in the water closet, in the train. While swimming, I produce a lot of things, especially in the sea. Less so in the bathtub, but there too."