Holography, wax museums, the secret meaning of spectator sports, Superman and the intellectual effects of over-tight jeans are just a few of the subjects covered in this collection of witty, entertaining and thought-provoking delights from Umberto Eco, celebrated author of The Name of the Rose.

'In an age of innumerable populist polymaths, Eco is the exception, a commentator who makes sense of what so often seems senseless. All the more reason to read him'
Time Out

'That he can write with equal agility on such subjects as the World Cup, St Thomas Aquinas, and how the wearing of tight blue jeans constricts the interior life as well as the body ... in a style that is both serious and diverting, is an achievement unparalleled in British journalism'
New Statesman

'There is enough liveliness here, and enough imaginative suggestiveness, to keep the reader furiously entertained'
Sunday Times

'A scintillating collection of writings by one of the most influential thinkers of our time'
Los Angeles Times

'Eco is ... a highly entertaining and perceptive "decoder" of the world'
Times Literary Supplement