Love Eco and most of his books. This one suffers a bit from using so much real historical information that it read a bit to me like a series of Wikipedia articles. The protagonist is horrible, but in this case, one that is pretty fun to read about. He LOVES good food. His fantasy of an all-night dining fest is a highlight. A casual mention of a certain French restaurant led me to learn about "pressed duck," and it's even more disgusting than it sounds.

If you enjoy the vocabularistic erudition of his other works, there's a bit less here. I hardly had to look up any words, while in his other novels I need to check on a few a page. Which I love to do! Still. This book was one of the highest-rated by my book club, which usually struggles to agree on a book's merit. A tonic for anyone who thinks the world is suddenly going to shit, because you'll see that it always was, and much more so. Read it!