Rating: 
Summary: Great Fun
Review: Dan Brown has created a true "can't-put-it-down" book. Every one of the book's short, 100+ chapters is carefully crafted to taunt you into reading just one more-until it's 3:00am and you reach the end.
The da Vinci Code's hero is a thinking person's Indiana Jones. Robert Langdon is an average guy we can all identify with whose special knowledge pulls him into situations out of his control. The book manages to avoid many of the clichés of most current thrillers. If you are as tired as I am of formulaic "thrillers" involving (pick one) ex-cop/Navy Seal/CIA assassin/disgraced MI6 operative, battling ruthless (pick one) terrorists/drug lords/Mafia/rouge government agency, over a (pick one) secret formula/nuclear bomb/doomsday weapon/etc, that will destroy the world, then this book will be refreshing! It's incredibly fast-paced while at the same time it keeps the reader reeling with amazing and true facts about history, art, and folklore.
My only criticism is that Brown doesn't trust his readers to keep up at times and spoils some of the fun by making sure we "get-it"-this is especially true at the book's end. On the other hand, the book's only lack of verisimilitude comes at several points when our brilliant heroes are stumped for an answer that is glaringly obvious to the untutored reader. But this one small criticism aside, if you are sick of macho, guns-and-ammo, anti-heroes and simplistic, graphically violent plots and long for the mystery and intrigue that has been lost from contemporary thrillers then you too won't be able to put this book down!
Rating: 
Summary: It's a Thriller.
Review: Hey Folks,
This one is just fun. Not even done yet and I'll recommend it. Yes its fiction but it does make you think about alot more than just the plot. The plot itself is straight-forward fare and it works well enough to keep things moving, it's thriller afterall. I have fun doing some research on the topics that make up the historical background to the story and when a book gets me learning new things while enjoying a good read well, I recommend it. So check it out and enjoy
Rating: 
Summary: Make it stop.
Review: If you can suffer through this collection of 4-page suspense recipes, and tolerate the most annoying prose style to appear in mall bookstores in quite some time, then by all means -- buy the book.
Rating: 
Summary: Looked promising, but did not deliver
Review: Despite the promise of delving into secret societies and code-breaking, I felt the book was shallow and predictable. It provides decent insight into the many interpretations of DaVinci's work, however, I was skeptical of the research used to arrive at the conclusions in the book. If you are a Catholic, the book is sacreligious, however it is not threatening. It was a good book to pass the time on a long transcontinental flight, however not meaty enough for me. I give it a B-/C+ . The character of Robert Langdon was merely a vehicle to move the story along. There was very little character development, and left me wondering about the motivation of the characters.
Rating:
Summary: Non Fiction DaVinci Code
Review: In the wake of the DaVinchi Code, the novel which continues to persistently sell like hotcakes, there's another take on the subject of the holy grail-- a non-fiction book called Miracle of the Ark that serendipitously uses quite a few of the same novel tactics to connect the dots but instead applies them to actual events, which produces different results and reaches alternative conclusions-- that deserves a look for balance sake. In like manner as the bestseller that is all the rage, this other treatment artistically arrives at answers which make logical sense and that are highly suggestive of the present abode of the real relict by reaching further back in time than Leonardo DaVinci to sources of the Middle Ages to show that the theory put forth is symbolically solid. Similar to the cipher found by the body that sets the stage in the murder mystery, in this case the lynchpin of the argument granting insight to pinpoint the possible location of the grail like a bull's-eye target revolves around a key etching drawn on the face of an oil lamp that was found hidden within the capital punishment grounds where blood was initially drawn for that sacred vessel that has vanished without a trace. What the oil lamp likely meant would not be solved until now, millennia after the clue was planted at the execution site during the Babylonian siege when, not so coincidentally, the Ark of the Covenant also simultaneously went missing into tunnels in the turmoil and looting in an interesting historical parallel to today. All was quiet on the grail front up to the time it became topical. Then, as if in poetic justice, in the inverse of the earlier invasion, when instead of waxing the tide has turned and regime of Iraq recedes after the war, a lead surfaces in a medieval manuscript's illumination that unlocks the counterintuitive mystery of the symbol on the lamp, which had previously been dismissed as irrelevant, much like the Biblical artifacts coming to the fore of late such as the ossuary burial box that remained in deep storage of antiquities dealers until the significance of the inscription James was realized. In the final analysis, when the riddle inside an enigma wrapped in swaddling clothes was figured out, in a surprise, unexpected ending, the grail and the Ark are synonymous, one and the same receptacle, teaching an old dogma new tricks.
Rating:
Summary: Readerly, not writerly book
Review: ...clunky writing. That's a fair complaint, except that this is a "readerly" (i.e., like Grisham, but better) not "writerly" (i.e., Styron) book. Don't buy this book expecting character development and beautiful prose. This is about a fantastic plot, but I did figure out the codes before they were revealed and the 2-page chapters got on my nerves (-1 star). But it's a page turner, and makes me want to do some research on the subject matter to see how much is fictional, how much conspiracy-theory, and how much truth.
Rating:
Summary: Ingredients for your own personal best-seller:
Review: Take one ruggedly handsome college professor, who is world-famous (despite the obscurity of his field) and embarrassingly humble; add one beautiful and intelligent woman who happens to be his equal and savior; mix in a physical freak of nature hellbent on destroying . . . anything; deposit all three in an international and exotic locale; stir with potentially catastrophic disasters; and, finally, ignore all dialogue, character, and scene. These are some of the more recent and common crutches used by various authors to drive a plot whose only goal is to desperately inform the reader of some unknown facts and/or ideas. The Da Vinci Code follows the above recipe to the letter. Even this formulaic plot could be potentially forgivable (a popcorn-movie in book form) if it were not for the blatant stupidity of every character in the book. If these people are as intelligent or as dangerous as the author would have us believe, how could they miss what is painfully obvious to the reader? As an example that takes place early on in the book, the two main characters are scampering through the Louvre finding clues to a message left to them by the woman's murdered grandfather. Within pages of each other, both discover leads that the other should have unraveled, each saying some variation of "I should have seen that!" Infuriating! To his credit, Dan Brown has written a page-turner. Unfortunately, you won't care about the characters, just the next eye-opener.
Rating:
Summary: Read it but don't expect a masterpiece...
Review: This book started out with an interesting premise that seemed to be building up to something but then didn't. "The Da Vinci Code" was engaging and a little bit addictive--for my desire to drag myself through the writing to find out what happened, not for its literary value. I found that it was a little hypocritical that although an idea of the story was the suppression of the "divine feminine" in society, the female protagonist was still portrayed as needing a male protector and at the end, the interesting tension between the two melted down to a simplistic let's-give-the-readers-what-they-want romance. The way that Brown worked his research into the story seemed chunky and forced, and his techniques for keeping readers in suspense were quite crude. Still, this book brings up a few interesting ideas and manages to hold your interest...just put the jacket from some other novel on it if you're somewhere with a lot of intelligent people.
Rating:
Summary: A masterful combination of history and modern-day suspense!
Review: I'm not exaggerating here when I say that this was one of the most intelligent and intricately-woven suspense novel that I've read...well, ever, I guess! This new twist on the age-old search for the "Holy Grail" presented an extremely interesting historical analysis of the basic tenets of a religion vs.the political manipulation of religious ideals. Dan Brown sucessfully analyzes the institution of the Catholic Church while showing complete respect for the basic tenets of Christianity. Very effective! Dan Brown did a fantastic job incorporating history into modern-day suspense. Not only did I learn about the truth behind pagan religions ("the sacred feminine" and the goddess)and how politics influenced the growth of the Church, but I also gained a new appreciation of Leonardo Da Vinci and other such "Renaissance Men". ...and the author's enticing descriptions of the sites of Paris (especially the Louvre) and London has reawakened a desire to travel to Europe someday! I look forward to reading more of Mr. Brown's writing!
Rating:
Summary: Fun from the first page
Review: Smart, exciting, not bogged down in goopy romantic interest though it's there.
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