Can a film change the world? If we believe in the power of one, that ability each human being carries around to make the environment around them better by simply adjusting their behavior, then films have the potential to change the world.

Best-selling Italian novelist Umberto Eco here advises aspiring writers not to take themselves too seriously, but to go step by step and remember that: "You're 10 per cent inspiration and 90 per cent perspiration."

'When someone looks at my library and asks if I have read everything, I reply: 'Absolutely not. The books I've already read are stored in the basement. Here, you barely see what I'll read during the weekend,'" Umberto Eco related with delightful self-irony.

Eco transcended the worlds of academics and fiction, penning numerous internationally acclaimed works.

While the classics have always had a reputation for intimidating length (Tolstoy, Dickens, I'm looking at you), we are now living in the era of an entirely new trend: the big, fat, juicy debut novel.