Rating: 
Summary: Greatest book I've read in a long time
Review: I had never read anything by this author before. Much to my surpise, this book was very intriguing. I couldn't put it down. Dan Brown offers up, throughout the book's magnificent plot, many alternate theories of of the Holy Grail. The plot unravels more like a movie plot with its vivid historical imagery and storytelling.
Rating: 
Summary: An explosive secret leads to death and destruction.
Review: The protagonists in Dan Brown's best selling novel, "The Da Vinci Code," are Robert Langdon, a brilliant symbologist from Harvard and Sophie Neveu, a French cryptologist. Sophie's grandfather, Jacques Sauniere, was brutally murdered in the Grand Gallery of the Louvre Museum in Paris, where he was curator. The French police suspect that Langdon may be the killer, but Langdon flees after protesting his innocence. He teams up with Sophie to decipher the clues that Sauniere left behind in the minutes before he died. The two then embark on a difficult and dangerous search that leads them through France and London on the trail of the real killer."The Da Vinci Code" is filled with complex puzzles and arcane facts about such subjects as the history of the Roman Catholic Church, Leonardo Da Vinci's genius, and the origins of such words as "villain" and "heretic". If you like puzzles and obscure history as I do, then you may find these parts of the book intriguing. However, Brown does not completely succeed in writing a great thriller. The characters of Sophie and Robert are poorly developed. We get no sense of them as human beings. They are merely vehicles for the many set speeches that they make throughout the book, often along the lines of, "I've got it! Let me explain what this code means!" The dialogue is stilted, the villains are stock characters, and the author overuses italics and exclamation points to show the reader that a very important event is occurring. On the plus side, Brown certainly piqued my interest with his fascinating and tantalizing codes and his unusual tale of a secret so earthshattering that it drives people to kill.
Rating: 
Summary: Indiana Jones for nerds
Review: When my daughter asked me what this book was like, I thought "Indiana Jones for nerds" was an apt description. The main character is even described as looking like Harrison Ford. Regardless, this is a fast paced story, helped along by short chapters. There are some really eye opening historical facts discussed in this novel, so much that I want to read more on this subject. So, in summary, the story itself is great, but I felt the writing style of the author was a little melodramatic. If you can get past that "over the top" style, you will enjoy this book.
Rating:
Summary: This is a great book!
Review: 'Are you sure that you're going to finish a book this time?' I've heard many versions of this same question since my interest in Freemasonry first began by reading 'Holy Blood, Holy Grail' over ten years ago. My wife is the first to remind me that out of my entire book collection, which is quite extensive, I rarely finish a book before becoming sidetracked by another. My library, like most who are on their quest for more light has become a hodgepodge of religion, philosophy, esoteric materials, Gnostic gospels, and volumes of Masonic works. Some fanciful, others, as near as I can tell, historically factual. Almost all, controversial to my family and friends. My library is an oddity to them, yet deeply personal to me, and last week I added yet another book to my every growing collection. I normally don't read novels. I enjoy the facts and generally feel that novels are a waste of good study time, however, as I was surfing Amazon.com one day a title grabbed my attention; 'The DaVinci Code.' Now'I just had to read the description, and am I glad that I did! Dan Brown is a superb author! He has spun a web of fiction on the bedrock of historical fact. The story centers around a leading Symbologist named Robert Langdon and the granddaughter of an elderly art museum curator Sophie Neveu. Sophie's grandfather is killed, and Sophie, a Cryptologist for French law enforcement, teams up with Robert Langdon, a Symbologist for Harvard University on a quest to find his killer, escape capture under false pretences, and discover the true hiding place of the Holy Grail! Quite honestly, this is one book that is difficult to set down and my wife was pleasantly surprised when I told her that I had finished The DaVinci Code. It was as if I had been thrust into this story with the characters! I lived every heart pounding minute. With heroes, villains, knights, maidens, secret societies, and ancient truths to boot, this is a real barn burner! The twists, turns, and energy put into this book will keep you turning the pages for more action and answers! Every free thinker should grab a copy of this book and indulge himself in a fact driven gem of fiction in pursuit of Truth. This book may challenge some people's preconceptions of history, but it will stretch your mind to new dimensions from which it will never return to its former state. This book is bound to thrust the reader onto a path of new discoveries. Don't just buy this book'Read it! Start reading early, grab a cup of coffee and a comfortable chair because once you start reading The DaVinci Code you'll have a difficult time setting it down!
Rating:
Summary: The DaVinci Code
Review: "Are you sure that you're going to finish a book this time?" I've heard many versions of this same question since my interest in Freemasonry first began by reading "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" over ten years ago. My wife is the first to remind me that out of my entire book collection, which is quite extensive, I rarely finish a book before becoming sidetracked by another. My library, like most who are on their quest for more light has become a hodgepodge of religion, philosophy, esoteric materials, Gnostic gospels, and volumes of Masonic works. Some fanciful, others, as near as I can tell, historically factual. Almost all, controversial to my family and friends. My library is an oddity to them, yet deeply personal to me, and last week I added yet another book to my every growing collection. I normally don't read novels. I enjoy the facts and generally feel that novels are a waste of good study time, however, as I was surfing Amazon.com one day a title grabbed my attention; "The DaVinci Code." Now...I just had to read the description, and am I glad that I did! Dan Brown is a superb author! He has spun a web of fiction on the bedrock of historical fact. The story centers around a leading Symbologist named Robert Langdon and the granddaughter of an elderly art museum curator Sophie Neveu. Sophie's grandfather is killed, and Sophie, a Cryptologist for French law enforcement, teams up with Robert Langdon, a Symbologist for Harvard University on a quest to find his killer, escape capture under false pretences, and discover the true hiding place of the Holy Grail! Quite honestly, this is one book that is difficult to set down and my wife was pleasantly surprised when I told her that I had finished The DaVinci Code. It was as if I had been thrust into this story with the characters! I lived every heart pounding minute. With heroes, villains, knights, maidens, secret societies, and ancient truths to boot, this is a real barn burner! The twists, turns, and energy put into this book will keep you turning the pages for more action and answers! Every free thinker should grab a copy of this book and indulge himself in a fact driven gem of fiction in pursuit of Truth. This book may challenge some people's preconceptions of history, but it will stretch your mind to new dimensions from which it will never return to its former state. This book is bound to thrust the reader onto a path of new discoveries. Don't just buy this book...Read it! Start reading early, grab a cup of coffee and a comfortable chair because once you start reading The DaVinci Code you'll have a difficult time setting it down!
Rating:
Summary: WOW!!
Review: I sat and read this book for 7 hours straight - unable to disconnect from the wild ride found within these pages. It is not often that a book pulls me in so completely that I forget about the weekend chores waiting and allow myself such a decadent escape. 24 hours later, I am still reeling. I have read many, many of the reviews for this book - both here and on the web. I have followed the author's links and read even further about the theories presented by this author & other writers. I keep asking myself, what is it that has me so drawn to this subject matter? I like the idea- the possibility- that there remains in this life a discovery of such magnitude as The Da Vinci Code. The modern world seems empty of mystery and the possibility of new discoveries and grand adventures. This story - albeit fiction - pulls our eyes away from the feelings of hopelessness that has invaded a majority of Christian faith & throws us head first into the eternally magical quest for the Holy Grail. Only we learn the quest is really ...oops. Can't say that! Just know this - the scientific mind will tear it apart looking for its weaknesses; the devoted religious will refuse to even entertain its message because to do so threatens the very core of Christian beliefs. But balanced on that fine line where science & religion come ever so close to one another, there is this refreshingly taut & fantastically bold story (and story is the key word here) ' with a very timely message. Enjoy!!
Rating: 
Summary: Drivel
Review: Poorly written drivel with a plot full of holes
(The discussion of the clues on the private plane ride from Versailles to Kent took longer than the flight itself takes, approx 35 min. It takes longer to read the chapter than the flight)
The riddles and clues are amusing but still don't add up to the truth and the time frame of the story (basically 24+ hours) is not believable.
Junk for the gullible
Rating: 
Summary: Not worth reading a second time
Review: While this book initially looked very promising, by the time I read a few pages in and saw a web address for ODAN, I knew that the author must have an axe to grind against Opus Dei in particular and the Catholic Church in general. I would have been willing to forgive that (every story needs a bad guy) had the book at least been engaging. However, by about halfway through the book I no longer wanted to read it; I finished the book only because I was bored and was curious about the riddles. Yes, the riddles were the only partially saving grace of this book; even though the rest of the book was decidedly lackluster, some of the riddles were ingenious. (I must wonder, though, how they could solve the puzzle involving encrypted Hebrew in mere minutes while taking several hours to find even a Biblical reference well known to most four-year-olds.) The author does a good, but not perfect, job of concealing the true identity of the Teacher; after I finished the book I paged back and saw at least a couple of examples where the author slipped up a bit--which would definitely irk me if I read this a second time. Likewise, Sophie and Langdon fall in love at the end; this is to be expected in pop fiction, but the author only even alludes to this once. Like so many other things in the book, this appears thrown in as an afterthought. This book could have been great. However, it has a cookie-cutter plot, loose ends, and the entire book is an attack on Opus Dei (and by extension the entire Catholic Church), which at times seems like it was the entire reason the book was written. The riddles and puzzles and art history alone would have been worth four stars, but sadly the rest of the book drags it down.
Rating:
Summary: An Entertaining Piece of Fiction - The Operative Word
Review: The Da Vinci Code is a work of fiction - If you relax, and take it for what it is, this novel will be an enjoyable, quick read. It has a smoothly flowing, Clancy-esque pulp fiction type of plot that manages to exude an aura of intelligence without getting bogged down in explaining the physics of a cruise missile to uncaring readers. The characters are a stumbling block - The only ones who get their fair share of background explanations are an albino monk named Silas and a codebreaking, gun-toting grandaughter of the Louvres' murdered curator. The rest are mere plot devices, or major characters without a history, let alone a personality. The author's research, though extensive, is flawed at times. To call it research is an insult to historians - He draws most of his information from numerous conspiracy theories relating to the Knights Templar, not a scrap of which has been proven true. One must remember that this is a work of fiction, and, just as it is fun to read about government UFO coverups or the like, it is fun to read this as well. This, however, is not a work of nonfiction, and if you wish to treat it as such, then a good, well-written novel becomes an unoriginal book filled to the brim with far-fetched, recycled conspiracy theories and slanted history.
Rating:
Summary: amazing
Review: This book is truly one of the most interesting, best written books I have ever read. The historicial facts can be taken with a grain of salt but the theories behind the novel are very interesting. I would highly recommend this to anyone who loves looking at religion in different ways!
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