Foucault's Pendulum

"Brilliant, funny, encompassing everything you ever wanted to know about practically everything (including numerology, James Bond's foes, and the construction of sewers), this book is both extraordinarily learned and well plotted." - Sunday Times

"Endlessly diverting... Even more intricate and absorbing than his international bestseller The Name of the Rose." - Time

"Brilliant... A novel that is deeper and richer than The Name of the Rose." - New York Times

"An intellectual adventure story, as sensational, thrilling, and packed with arcana as Raiders of the Lost Ark or The Count of Monte Cristo." - The Washington Post

"Umberto Eco is literature's great magician... He offers us many passages of brilliance, and treats us to a Shakespearean alternation of paroxysm and intimacy, madness and wisdom. There is something here for everyone. His genius affords his readers a selection of delights that will make their heads spin." - Le Monde

"Seriousness, of course, need not mean gloom, and it should also be mentioned that this is an extremely funny book, full of good jokes at the expense of exploitative publishers and pompous intellectuals... I doubt if we will see a more exhilarating novel published this year." - The Guardian

"Dense, packed with meaning, often startlingly provocative, the novel is a mixture of metaphysical meditation, detective story, computer handbook, introduction to physics and philosophy, historical survey, mathematical puzzle, compendium of religious and cultural mythology, guide to the Torah (Hebrew, rather than Latin contributes to the puzzle here, but is restricted mainly to chapter headings), reference manual to the occult, the hermetic mysteries, the Rosicrucians, the Jesuits, the Freemasons - ad infinitum." - Publishers Weekly

"A rich, comic work moving between points of erudition and parody, captured here with a smooth translation from William Weaver." - Kirkus Reviews