Four stars for pure entertainment value.However, Dave Barry's review gets five stars:`The Da Vinci Code,' crackedby Dave BarryI have written a blockbuster novel. My inspiration was The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown, which has sold 253 trillion copies in hardcover because it's such a compelling page-turner. NOBODY can put this book down:MOTHER ON BEACH: Help! My child is being attacked by a shark!LIFEGUARD (looking up from The DaVinci Code: Not now! I just got to page 243, where it turns out that one...

PLEASE do NOT recommend The Da Vinci Code to me because you think it's brilliant. Please do not try to explain to me that it is a "really interesting and eye-opening book." Just don't. Please. I've read Iain Pear, I heart Foucault's Pendulum, Dashiell Hammett is my hero, Alan Moore is My Absolute Favorite, I listen to Coil on a fairly regular basis, and cloak n' dagger secret society/Priory of Sion/Knights of Templar-tinged num nums make me a very happy girl... but if you truly believe that Brow...

most of us have heard of this controverisal book. it takes an open minded person to read this and to remember it is just fiction. but it brings up a lot of important questions about the Christian church, and the loss of paganism and the respect of the Goddess or the Woman. I don't care if I am the only one who likes this book. it is my own truth, and i will think what i want to think. Dan Brown didn't LEAD me or anyone else. he OPENED our minds. simply and importantly...he was just a catalyst fo...

(A-) 80% | Very GoodNotes: Excessive exposition and ludicrous writing discolor an otherwise captivating, thought-provoking, page-turning read.

This is a pretty formulaic page turner, a fun quick read. Written at about the level of the average Nancy Drew mystery, it is best appreciated at that level. As far as the content, there are howlers on virtually every page (starting with the hero who looks like "Harrison Ford in Harris tweed" and is a "Professor of Religious Symbology at Harvard" -- good work if you can find it). You have to ignore very pulpy, cheesy writing to enjoy this romantic thriller.Intended as a book that a dedicated rea...

A thriller devoid of pacing or exciting language. A mystery devoid of clues, foreshadowing, or facts. A tell-all of half-truths based upon a forged document written by a schizophrenic conman. A character-driven modern novel devoid of character. The second draft of Angels and Demons. Page-turning action thanks to the literary equivalent of pulling out at the moment of orgasm. A spiritual awakening built on new-age conspiracy theory. This book is many things, and none of them good, new, or interes...

OKAY PEOPLE…someone let me in on the gag because between the cries of "Greatest Book of Greaty Greatness EVER" and the screams of "Lamest Load of Lamey Lameness EVER", my itty bitty brain is left very… So post Hype-a-ganza, I finally got around to reading this popular, polarizing, pop culture icon and thought it was….drum roll……………………FINE(sigh). It was a solid read with a slight lean towards the “eh” side of MEH and few moments of genuine “that’s neat.” I don’t see all the love and I don’t s...

5 stars to Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. Most folks have seen the movie and probably not read the book. What a loss for them! That said, I know a lot of people don't enjoy Brown's books, believing he is too commercialized and over-exaggerated in his style. While I can understand why someone may think that, I don't agree. I love the complexity of the story, the reality and the fiction, the test of character strength, the puzzles, the different view points. It completely absorbs me... so I fall i...

Alternate history, uchronias, and indirect criticism of faith and ideology combine to one of the most successful thriller series of all times. Everything was already on the table, many authors had dealt with the different ideas Brown is mixing together, and finding and recombining conspiracy theories isn´t that complicated. It´s the mix of different topics that interest many people stirred together that make it entertaining for the ones who like art or thrillers, for atheists and religious peopl...

No, I am not! No, I am not going to write a review about this piece of nonsense just because I had yet ANOTHER of those incredibly annoying conversations (in a bookstore to top it off!). No, I am not.Oh, for goodness sake! It is NOT a great book to broaden your cultural horizons, and whatever the humbug mentioned on Leonardo - it is NOT equivalent to reading a book researched by a REAL art historian, - which is something entirely different from a blind-folded arrogant gold digging bestseller aut...

Dan Brown - image from USA Today A real page-turner, about a Holy Grail quest. It is replete with oodles of interesting little details about church history, the true meaning of the grail, secret societies through the ages, Opus Dei and architectural details. In this fast-paced adventure an American art expert is accused of killing a director of the Louvre. Rescued by the deceased's granddaughter, a police cryptologist, the pair flees from both French and British police. The tale is enlivened wit...

I downloaded the book and put it on my ipod and began to listen to it on a long road trip. I found it engaging and the plot twisted and turned, jumping from scene to scene, back and forth in time. Really kept the reader on her toes. I'm not sure if I liked it, the writing style was pretty crude, but it kept me thinking.About an hour into listening I realized that the ipod was on shuffle mode and in fact all the chapters were being shuffled. I groaned and started over. When played in a linear fas...

Impossibly complicated plot. Really, really, really bad writing. This book was forced upon me. I should have known better.

I've finally started reading that ever so controversial best-seller by Dan Brown. Actually, not reading it, listening to it while driving around Lansing, MI. This book seems to have changed the minds of many Catholics (my grandfather included) and Protestants alike. Granted, there have long been rumors of secret societies and organizations within the Roman Catholic Church, and historical cover-ups are rampant throughout civilization. HOWEVER,The book is crap. It's not at all well written. Brown

Exciting news for the blind and partially-sighted community, as the publishers release a Braille version:

Every summer I tend to enjoy reading action and adventure thrillers. The genre seems perfect for the hot weather outside as all of the action builds to a heated crescendo. Last week I participated in a diary called the Pepys Project in one of the groups I am part of, the reading for pleasure book club. The diarist relays pertinent literary information on a daily basis to ones peers. It happened that author Dan Brown celebrated a birthday last week, and as I had never read his best selling DaVinc...

For the most part, it seems that people either passionately love this book or they passionately hate it. I happen to be one of the former. For my part, I don't see the book so much as an indictment of the Catholic Church in particular but of religious extremism and religion interfering in political process in general. The unwarranted political control granted to extreme religious organizations like the CBN is an issue that we will be forced to address one way or the other. To my eye, our politic...

It's considered an unfair advantage using a cryptex box to solve this.

For cheap supermarket fiction, this sure was cheap supermarket fiction. It would have helped if this was the first book I had ever read. Unfortunately, having read Curious George as a child (a towering work of literary genius by comparison), The DaVinci Code suffered perhaps unjustly.

This book is non-stop action.This book is non-stop action.This book is non-stop action.This book is non-stop action.This book is non-stop action.This book is non-stop action.This book is non-stop action.This book is non-stop action.This book is non-stop action.This book is non-stop action.This book is non-stop action.This book is non-stop action.This book is non-stop action.This book is non-stop action.This book is non-stop action.This book is non-stop action.This book is non-stop action.This bo...

This book, and everything written by Dan Brown (to varying degrees), represent much of what I most dislike about pop literature. First of all, Mr. Brown, despite teaching English at Amherst College, is a bad writer. This is not to say that I am a good writer. But I recognize a person who can't "show" you vivid scenes, he has to "tell you". Various characters wear expensive clothes. How do we know? The text says they're expensive. How do we know Mr. Langdon is brilliant? The text makes no bones a...

Book Circle Reads 11Rating: 3 stars of five The Publisher Says: An ingenious code hidden in the works of Leonardo da Vinci. A desperate race through the cathedrals and castles of Europe. An astonishing truth concealed for centuries . . . unveiled at last.While in Paris, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is awakened by a phone call in the dead of the night. The elderly curator of the Louvre has been murdered inside the museum, his body covered in baffling symbols. As Langdon and gifted French cr...

Caveat Academics!!!I won't belabor the obvious, as it's been done quite well by other reviewers, but I just couldn't stand not to add my own "hear hear!" to the fray. If you're going to create a character who is an expert, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE make sure you check your facts! Whoever edited this drivel ought to be sewn in a sack with a rabid raccoon and flung into Lake Michigan.And just as a matter of good taste - your expert should not be an expert in everything under the sun. That's one of the

Illuminati and Club of Rome. Is Dan Brown illuminated or enlightened?He is a good researcher that is for sure.If you like Dan Brown.Check out Crooked Gold by Carl Knauf.

I could not put this down! Im 100% sure this book is going to start a love affair with Dan Brown.

I am utterly stupefied by this masterpiece and Dan Brown's ability to blur the lines between the real and the fictional, as he did in the first book in the Robert Langdon series. It's a mouthwatering book, always keeping you on the edge, from page one up until the last page I could hear my own heart beating because of the thrill. I had found the first book extraordinary when I read it three months ago and I'm so glad I finally read it, especially after all those years of reading the controversia...

Well that was unfortunate. 😕Robert Langdon is an American professor of Symbology who finds himself suddenly thrust into a dangerous plot involving two separate Church organizations revolving around the Roman Catholic Church. Tensions and steaks both rise as Robert Langdon works hard to not only escape but to find out the truth.Okay I say that this is unfortunate because I have, very unfortunately, made a grave mistake with this book. That is that I have seen the film first before reading the boo...

**3.5 stars**“History is always written by the winners. When two cultures clash, the loser is obliterated, and the winner writes the history books-books which glorify their own cause and disparage the conquered foe. As Napoleon once said, 'What is history, but a fable agreed upon?” Dan Brown has written quite a few books over the years, and I know the years are past when he was my favorite author (probably for being amongst the selected handful I had read)…but this one still has a place quite

Fellow Goodreaders, I have a confession to make. (Strikes Abe Lincoln pose). No, I haven't actually read it, if that's what you're thinking. But, in a way, it's worse. The fact is, I... er... I... I'm sorry, this is rather difficult for me... I once, ah, I once wrote a letter to a national newspaper supporting Dan Brown's book. And had it published. OK, I've said it, and now I feel better. (Wipes sweat from forehead). I tried to find the offending item just now on Google, but it looks as though

I thought I was going to hate this when I picked it up. I thought there was no way I was going to fall into the hysteria that happened years ago when this book came out. I didn’t exactly find myself in a frenzy but quickly found myself fifty pages in and interested in a hurry. It reads fast, with short chapters and a thriller pace. Maybe I should read more thrillers but I doubt they will fill the same urge. I enjoyed this book thoroughly but, in the end, I don’t know exactly what I came away wit...