Friday was not a great day for us bibliophiles:

Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird, dies aged 89

and

Italian author Umberto Eco dies aged 84

I knew both authors for one beloved book each. For Harper Lee it was because she never wrote another book after To Kill a Mockingbird. For Umberto Eco I don’t have that excuse. I loved The Name of the Rose, and usually when I love a book, I actively seek out others by the author. I distinctly remember reading the back cover synopsis of Foucault’s Pendulum in a bookstore once and not being terribly interested. I have no idea why I never looked for anything else he wrote.

It’s very sad to lose them both.

If you’ve never read either To Kill a Mockingbird or The Name of the Rose, there’s no better time than now!

Speaking of beloved books: How One Mashup Artist Got Legal Permission to Pair Calvin & Hobbes with Dune. It’s pretty awesome. With the permission of Bill Watterson, the artist takes Calvin & Hobbes comic strips and replaces the dialog with extensive quotes from various Dune books creating some really interesting results.

Check it out: Calvin & Muad’Dib