Guus Bosman

After reading the Da Vinci code I longed back to the wonderful books of Umberto Eco, and I still had "The Island of the Day Before" unread on my bookshelf. A great book again; this one is placed in the 17th century where an Italian noble finds himself on an abandoned ship near the "antipodal meridian," or the international date line.

The main character, Roberto, looks back at the events that brought him to this ship. He starts writing a story, and tries to deal with philosophical questions. Eco is truly a master-author. He plays very nicely with the relationship between author and reader, especially because Roberto is writing a story as well.

The end is very beautiful, where a great mixture between the different story-lines occurs.