Foucault’s Pendulum

Set in 1970s Milan, Umberto Eco's novel follows Casaubon, a student writing a thesis on the Knights Templar, who meets Belbo and Diotallevi, editors at a publishing house. Bored with their work, the three invent a hoax of their own, which they call the Plan, tying the Templars to occult groups across the centuries, with help from a program on Belbo's computer that shuffles sentences at random. The Plan points to a spot in Paris, marked by Foucault's Pendulum, from which the powers of the earth could be controlled. The novel is divided by the ten Sefiroth and dense with references to Kabbalah, alchemy and conspiracy theory.

UploadCare chief executive Igor Debatur named it in an interview among the books he would recommend to young people interested in his career path.