Book suggestions?

 I just finished Umberto Eco's last book, The Prague Cemetery and it's time to start reading something else. Any suggestions? I have to say that The Prague Cemetery was a bit hard and dense to read, though it is full of  historic illustrations and sketches. The story, that takes places in nineteenth century Europe, is based on historical facts and it really shows how reality is weirder than fiction. If your thing is history and you like suspense, intrigue and spies you will enjoy it. I am not sure I did, it was surely interesting, and I learnt a lot. It made me research and find out more about the actual historical events behind it, but most of all it made me sad. And it made me sad because the kind of dreadful events taking place in the book, the plot, the prejudices... it all sounds too familiar. This kind of stuff is still happening nowadays, take for instance this excerpt:

"... For the enemy to be recognised and feared, he has to be in your home, on your doorstep. We need an enemy to give people hope. Someone said that patriotism is the last refuge of cowards: those without moral principles usually wrap a flag around themselves, and the bastards always talk about the purity of the race. National identity is the last bastion of the dispossesed. But the meaning of identity is now based on hatred, on hatred for those who are not the same. Hatred has to be cultivated as a civic passion. The enemy is the friend of the people".

I want to believe that as mankind we learn from the past, that we will not make the same mistakes again. That a multicultural, friendly society where we embrace the differences, where we recognize that the richness is in those differences, and learn from each other, while interacting peacefully and harmoniously is possible.