Rating: 
Summary: Waste of Money!
Review: I bought the book and I read it twice, just to make sure I would make a fair judgement about it. The book is fragmented and ridiculous, I would not recommend this to anyone unless they have a problem sleeping! This book promptly put me to sleep the first time I read it, and the second time I read the whole book I realized it was the story line, the plot leaves little to be desired! By the time a reader realizes why people are being killed you get bored with the book. I recommend for an EXCELLENT read, Stephen King, Michael Crichton, basically anyone but this person! The publishers Killed too many trees to make this book!
Rating: 
Summary: Almost impossible to put down!
Review: "The DaVinci Code" is probably the best book I've read this year. I'd recommend starting it on a Friday evening, so you can finish it quickly--it's really difficult to put down once you start to read it. Dan Brown really masters the art of keeping the reader on pins and needles in this work.
Rating: 
Summary: So-so : not much more than Clancy, certaintly not Eco
Review: ...and less readable. Behind the facade of learning that shows up here and there (enough to make this book a reliable source of crank theories about da Vinci), this book is a completely usual adventure story. Much as in his previous work, Angels and Demons, cardboard characters populate a novel replete with brand names and consumerist techno-orgasms. Tom Clancy writes about submarines in gory detail; look here for economiums on expensive Jaguar cars, Oxford graduates with lots of servants, and supertiny hard drives. One almost expects an amazon affiliates link after every paragraph. Dan Brown is also an incredible snob, which shows page after page as he displays a Harvard-worship that would make even the hardest of hard-core alumni cringe; his hero, in his finely graded tastes, reminds me of the worst bits of Ian Flemming's Bond (Bond, at least, was expelled from Eton; here, everyone graduates summa cum laude.) Umberto Eco did the intellectual conspiracy of silence novel far far better in Foucalt's Pendulum; read that first. However, once you've been exposed to Eco's playful intelligence, you'll probably find this a bit of a letdown. Dan Brown doesn't know how to write a mystery -- once you get the hang of his methods, which takes a few chapters, the remaining "puzzles" seems trivially obvious pages before they're revealed in rather long-winded scenes. The romantic moments are cringe-worthy in their woodeness, and while you don't read adventure novels for the finely drawn characters (usually a Sherlock Holmes is enough to carry the day), neither the hero nor his sometimes-fawning, sometimes-antagonistic friends become more than the carefully drawn up CVs Dan Brown produces for them An airplane novel, and not worth the attention and hype it's been getting. There should be a higher bar for this kind of popular intellectual puzzler novel, but perhaps our standards are much lower than when Poe or even Conan Doyle was writing.
Rating: 
Summary: fiction with true history makes this a suspenseful story
Review: Wow! Two stories in one book...one is a fictional murder mystery with puzzles and riddles while another is based on true biographical/historical artifact and documentary. A great read that was hard to put down. Enjoyable and fascinating if one hasn't been privy to the real Knights Templar story and the Holy Grail. It made my head spin!
Rating: 
Summary: An "OK" Mystery
Review: The novel was interesting enough to keep me reading, but as I neared the half way point I realized that the characters were "cardboard" cutouts and their actions were very predictable. The only thing that kept me reading was the plot line about the history of the secret society and it's charge to protect a very important secret.
When I finished reading the book, I felt that as a novel this was just an average book. As I mentioned above, the characters were not very real and the plot of their adventures was pretty dull. However, I was also confused about all of the "historical" information presented. I just did not know which part was fiction and which was real. So in the end this book has sparked an interest in me to do some more reading and see if I can learned somethig new. For that reason I gave the book 3 stars instead of 2.
Rating:
Summary: Will leave you as energized as the characters
Review: A fast moving book and perhaps the most amazing thing is that the main characters stay wide awake for nearly 48 hours after being woken up in the middle of the night and zipping all over Paris and London. If you are not familiar with the history of the Grail Legend, (which I wasn't) I think you will find this one of the most fascinating parts of the story. The amount of research required to write this must have been considerable. A previous and certainly perceptive reviewer could see the plot twists a few pages in advance, and I too sensed something was coming in a couple places, but most twists and turns were genuine surprises. Fans of this prose who like more human insight will feel a little let down, as the characters have some depth, but are more there to advance the plot than anything else. I've read better popular non-fiction, but only rarely.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting read but predictable
Review: I very much enjoyed the premise of the book and loved the thought-provoking issues it touched on, but was somewhat disheartened by the claim that the book was one of the best mystery reads of the year. Brown sets up his two characters as figures of great intellectual authority (Sophie, cryptologist; Langdon, Harvard professor specializing in religious symbolism), but I found myself solving the novel's "puzzles" two or three pages ahead of the characters. I don't claim to know much about art history, grail legend, or goddess worship, but having rudimentary knowledge of Da Vinci's work, romance language, and church history should NOT allow a reader to out-reason characters set up to be experts. Nevertheless, I appreciate any author that attempts to disspell many of the conventions about religion, history, and humanity to which so many people so desparately cling.
Rating:
Summary: A Case For John Grisham?
Review: "The Da Vinci Code" is a fast-paced page-turner. Though by adult literary standards, the book is fairly weak, it should serve as a great start for young people interested in the adventure of European history. I sincerely applaud that. Unfortunately Brown and his editors made the choice to preface the book with specific claims concerning "Fact" and "Accuracy." This was a strange decision. Mr. Brown's interpretations are his own business, but he is swearing that the basic facts on documents and art objects are correct. As has already been shown in "The New York Times" and others, this is unquestionably untrue. The book has more factual holes in it than a mound of Swiss (Secret Bank Account) Cheese. Are we then to assume that Mr. Brown and his publishers are simply incompetent, or were they knowingly dishonest. If someone sells me a painting they say is real but turns out to be a forgery, it is a crime. Here an author and publisher have made tens of millions of dollars peddling a book to millions of people, to a large degree because they claim it is based on controversial but accurate information. Now that much of that basic information is turning out to be false, isn't that a clear-cut case of fraud? No accusations here, just an honest question. I hold a MA degree from an Ivy League school and have lived in Europe for many years. I am concerned about how much deceit I see in American culture these days. I, for one, will be trying not to buy books from Doubleday in the future. I hope Mr. Brown continues to serve up his platters of fun for young people, but I hope very much that he and his publishers decide to retract their false claims to accuracy. Besides, my experience has been that the truth (or at least an honest attempt based on current research) about a number of the areas Brown touches on is much more interesting than the tired myths and legends he serves up here, albeit in a zippy new package.
Rating:
Summary: The single best murder mystery I have ever read
Review: Normally I am not the type to read murder mysteries, I generally read non-fiction. But someone at work read this, they told a few people how incredible it was, they told a few more and eventually I read it. I read it over Labor Day weekend while camping and I suggest you find similar down time because once you pick this up you will NEVER want to put it down.
This book puts into question everything we grew up learning and teaches you a few interesting things you never knew. I highly recommend this book to anybody, no matter what type of book you like to read.
I cannot say enough about how good this book is!
Rating:
Summary: Caution: Read only if you have 48 hours uninterrupted time!
Review: What happens when you combine ancient history, Jesus Christ, and a Harvard Graduate all into one novel? You get Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. From the first pages it is impossible to tear oneself away as you follow Robert and Sophie on their quest for the ultimate truth. Langdon creates a ton of literary tension and a new surprise on each page as he masterfully describes each new challenge that the protagonists face. With each chapter a new piece of the world's oldest puzzle becomes known. After reading this you will be running to the Art Museum to examine the "evidence" for youself! Trust no one! And read The Da Vinci Code!
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