Rating: 
Summary: one author to another...
Review: It amazes me to see another writer get torn to pieces when mentioning a religion...even in fiction??? The negative reviews of this book stand as a testament to the fact that if you mention anyones religion in what they happen to perceive as a negative light...you will blind them to what you are truly saying...if anything...after all this is a fiction novel. Which by the way i could not put down...you had me sucked in at the mention of a female goddess??? sounds good to me!! To all the others out there that are too educated to enjoy a good read...i really feel bad for you...you don't know what you are missing...no need to tear this book to shreds because it mentions the catholic church, some art history and a conspiracy...has this world become so serious that no one can read a good fiction novel for pure fantasy and enjoyment anymore?? Though...i will check into the female Goddess thing...sounds good to me!
Rating: 
Summary: Only sinners will read this book!
Review: I cannot tell you how much I hated this book and urge you to boycott it. I am a lifelong Republican and activist. My party stands for those who are successful, Christian minded, and controlling those who want to hurt American business. - First of all, how dare you oppose Bush in not supporting of the glorious war and Crusade against non-Christian infidels? What's all this bull about WMDs? Saddam killed, so we killed, might makes right in any sensible mind. So all those who are against Bush are going to hell. - Democrats are all renegade swine, quite frankly, and it's a crying shame they are even allowed to vote. Jesus would have supported Bush in his war against muslim sheep and cutting funds for people who are disabled, crippled, retarded, old, etc. It's their own fault, Bush didn't make these losers the way they are.
- So Bush didn't win the popular election; God wanted him to be President, God didn't trust the 'popular majority' and God wanted a military hero like Bush in office. Thank God for our unbiased Supreme Court.
- Furthermore, how dare you show narrow-minded animosity at Bush when he is a self made man. Don't believe those who say the US doesn't have enough jobs. If the Mexicans can find jobs, so can you. Republicans get better jobs because we know the game, know how to take advantage of the system, and because of our Godly contacts. You should buy Anne Coulter books instead. She is the leading spokeswoman for the Republican party because she knows and speaks our truth. Quotes from her:
• "I think [women] should be armed but should not [be allowed to] vote...women have no capacity to understand how money is earned. They have a lot of ideas on how to spend it....it's always more money on education, more money on child care, more money on day care."-- Politically Incorrect, 2/26/01
• "...a cruise missile is more important than Head Start."-- Speech, 11/01, rebroadcast by C-Span in Jan. 2002
• "In his brief fiery ride across the landscape, Joe McCarthy bought America another thirty years. For this, he sacrificed his life, his reputation, his name. The left cut down a brave man, but not before the American people heard the truth."-- The Drudge Report, quoting from Coulter's new book, Treason, 6/19/03 • "We hate them. Americans don't want to make Islamic fanatics love us. We want to make them die. There's nothing like horrendous physical pain to quell anger. A couple of well-aimed nuclear weapons will get our opposition out of the way."-- Column, 9/25/02
• "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity."-- Column, 9/13/01
• "We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed, too. Otherwise, they will turn out to be outright traitors."-- Speech to Conservative Political Action Conference, January 2002 • "Soldiers are just cowards with their backs against the wall. The lowest IQ men in our society, those incapable of normal careers enlist. Their choice in life; prison or the military. Some will have to die in the support of our cause."-- Intervention Magazine, 11/06/03
• "The only beef Enron employees have with top management is that management did not inform employees of the collapse in time to allow them to get in on the swindle."-- Column, 1/24/02
• "My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building."-- New York Observer interview, 8/20/02
• "Then there are the 39 million greedy geezers collecting Social Security. The greatest generation rewarded itself with a pretty big meal."-- WorldNetDaily, 12/10/03 My hero is the Ex-House Speaker, Newt Gingrich, GOP presidential prospect, and architect of the Republican Party's failed impeachment of President Clinton. He only failed because Newt was having an affair. Who could blame Newt, his wife went and got sick with cancer. That was completely different from Clinton.
Unlike Clinton, Newt was smart enough to divorce his wife after she got sick and could no longer drag him down with her. Lastly, how dare you stumblingly expose your miscreant incompetence with rantings against the Patriot Act. In my mind
Some Americans have too many Constitutional rights. The Bill of Rights should not even apply to the blue-collar middle classes who are too stupid to get involved. No Bush hating media or newspapers should have 'freedom of the press,' since they only have their rights and freedoms because the rich allow them to have them. Ever see some poor slob or middle class idiot who owned a newspaper company? You defamatory libelous, uneducated swine should keep your comments to yourselves or we'll send your job overseas. Go out and burn this book now! I'll pray everyone who buys this book will burn in hell!
Rating: 
Summary: ...and scene.
Review: Readers of Laura Esquivel will recognize in Dan Brown's "The DaVinci Code" the same initially inspired meeting of physical science and the arts that formed the basis of her "Swift as Desire." In her novel, Esquivel forged a strong connection between the unlikely fields of telegraphy (as a literary endeavour) and astronomy. In Brown's novel, he begins with an interesting plot that utilizes some actual mathematical patterns in Leonardo DaVinci's masterpieces. Unfortunately, it is a meeting that gets similarly bogged down by the middle with its own premise. While Esquivel gets tied up in romantic psuedoscience, Brown gets attached to a single religious metaphor that eventually turns into a (seeming) political agenda. This is a murder mystery in a sense, but feels for the most part like a treatise on women in Christianity. The implications of the so-called "sacred feminine," a religious devotion to female... um... well, we never quite find out why women are so great..., are both too heavy handed and light-weight, and lose their force by the 12th chapter. The conclusion has little to do with the evidence set up throughout the book; and in the last hundred pages, the main character is interpreting almost everything as a symbolic womb. Much like the soundtrack to "Eyes Wide Shut," a movie Brown references in "The DaVinci Code," he takes an interesting premise and beats his audience over the head with it, rather than letting them discover it gradually for themselves. There is an influx of new information preceding each chapter's remarkable discovery that detracts from what was an interesting, cryptologically-centered premise with good evidence. I suspect this has something to do with the critical praise that has elevated the novel to "a work of genius". This is not without merit. There is much promise here, and much passion that is just a little too latent, that I couldn't help feeling at points like I was reading a laundry list of cool things that Brown wanted to address at some point. He waits until a critical juncture in the events before unloading vast quantities of symbolic history on his reader- some of which is questionable in its accuracy- and then pulls his characters through it almost as an afterthought. There is much made of the goddess worship by the main character, but in the end this same character spends more energy mentally undressing churches than he does discerning the unique qualities of his inevitable love interest. In the end, we know that she is as smart as he is and has nice legs, but their attraction is a mystery. For all we can tell, they get together because he's a guy and she's a gal and they have matching diplomas. That said, the beginning of the book is very good- there are some genuine laughs and intriguing questions that get misplaced. Brown conveys a genuine love for the work and the tangents it takes him on that ultimately prevents you from judging the glaring problems too harshly. Unfortunately, you get a sense that Brown is lost for most of his brainstorming session, and ends up at the last forty pages needing to end the book and not wanting to. For more in depth pondering of these questions, read anything by Kurt Godel, or maybe even come back to Dan Brown in a few years. The book was entertaining and I'd be interested to see what more he can add with his current influence.
Rating:
Summary: Gripping, but definitely "fiction"
Review: I know, I know it's a suspense book and you're not supposed to take it too seriously. I disagree. Fiction is really the best way to spread a theory that is otherwise too hot to handle in the mainstream - and believe me, we ARE talking theory, here. I know you've read some incredible things about Mary Magdalene and her fling with Jesus the Christ in THE DA VINCI CODE by educated Harvard writer Dan Brown.
Many of these theories come out of a well-financed (Hollywood financed!) minority of revisionist scholars whom the press sees as more exciting when they are, in fact, just speculating. Consider the non-fiction work of twenty-year New Testament scholar Donald Spoto "The Hidden Jesus". In Chapter 14 he rules out many of the theories that discount what happened at Christ's Tomb (Mind you, this book is not sold at Christian book stores - he merely represents 70-80 percent of real scholars' opinions):
"....other fantasies have Jesus meeting up with Mary Magdalene and hopping off to Spain, where they marry, settle down, raise a family - and presumably work on their memoirs or obtain a Gucci francise. This is the stuff of Hollywood, not of historical-religious exploration. Need I add that, for tales like this, there is, of course, not a shred of reliable historical evidence?.......No, the best historical judgement to make on the tradition is that things happened as they are written. There is very much in favor of that, and nothing against it." I just want to be sure that a decision for or against the craziness depicted in Brown's book and many others is made based on an educated opinion, not a sensationalist one or one because the Catholic Church sucks. I couldn't get around the hyberbola hocus-pocus that he presents as fact. I'm sure if he could comment he would say "Well....it is!" But he presents his theory to people who barely have time to entertain themselves with a book - much less learn Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek to discount him. It's 'Best Seller's list' status makes me want to buy a newspaper franchise because It's going to take a hundred years to educate the public properly on what most real scholars believe: a truth so apparent, so clear that it doesn't make good TV.
I give the book 0 stars for Yellow Journalism.
Rating:
Summary: very thought provoking
Review: it calls into question many beliefs firmly held by a majority of this world. and as an educated individual, one should be able to examine the theory with an open mind and realize that the possibilities suggested by this book just might be true. religion is based on belief -- scietifically unproven. but yet we believe anyways.
Rating: 
Summary: Pretty darned good story...
Review: Dan Brown's suspenseful tale of the search for the Holy Grail is what good fiction should be: intriguing, entertaining, and most of all, thought-provoking. Robert Langdon is a symbologist whose life's work is the study of feminine symbology. When Jacques Sauniere, the head curator of the Louvre, is murdered and Langdon's name is left in his final words, Langdon is dragged into a web of mysterious secret societies and obscure religious orders, all while being chased by police and those who killed Sauniere. His quest begins simply to prove his innocence, but rapidly evolves into the ultimate quest--the quest for the Holy Grail. Along the way, Langdon reveals hidden meanings in paintings and art spanning two millenia, all while racing to save the secret of the Grail and his own life. Taken at face value, this book is quite simply entertaining. Brown obviously did a lot of research, and presents some interesting ideas. To his credit (or perhaps to his discredit), he sneaks a couple of disclaimers into the dialogue text in an effort to be pragmatic and to lessen the impact of the some of his assertions. But the fact remains that the book is a work of fiction, and should be taken as such; looking for fact in a fictional work is an exercise in futility. As an author, Brown has license to twist reality, and whether or how much he did so is irrelevant. In my opinion, he did it well and in a very entertaining manner. The fact that so many people are talking about it is proof enough of this. The only problem that I have with this book is that the characters were all a little to clean; they were simple, with very little complexity. Brown also falls into the typical mystery author trap, where characters are endowed with magical cognizant powers. This book, as a work of fiction, is entertaining. It never failed to keep my attention, and was fairly stimulating from the first page to the last. Aside from the somewhat bland characters, I can't complain. This is a good, solid, entertaining book.
Rating:
Summary: Incredible book! (but a terrible ending)
Review: Only one word can describe this book, and that word is "unbelievable"! Dan Brown has the best writing style I have EVER seen by any author, and the points he makes are very convincing. I encourage everyone to read this book, even if you're a fundamentalist Christian, because hey, maybe it might knock some sense into ya! (lol, jk) Although this book was one of the greatest books I've ever read (if not THE greatest), the ending is terrible! I would have given this the whole 5 stars if the ending had been better, but it was a huge dissappointment!
Rating:
Summary: Just a little notice...
Review: I came by at this book by total chance, wandering around the bookstore looking for a good read, when by chance a woman stopped nearby and picked up a copy of The Da Vinci Code. I read a few pages, and I was grabbed. Eventually I bought it, finished, and loved it. I do not know much about art history, biblical passages, beliefs and/or studies. However, as I read through quite a few of these reviews, it was a bit...shocking, if I may, that people seem to dislike the book very much. I don't recall seeing as many 1 and 2 stars on a book rating on this than any other. I am trying to word this review very carefully as not to offend someone. I understand that many people would dislike the book for it's supposed/demanding inaccuracy in certain people's religions. Brown may or may not have researched thoroughly, but for goodness sake, it is fiction. I don't believe that Brown would intentionally try to offend someone. The book is targeting and a huge conspiracy. Whether it true or false, it is a good book, and many should appreciate the hard work many authors put into writing a book. For that, and a good read, I give it a five.
Rating:
Summary: The Da Vinci Code
Review: Normally I don't like mystery novels but this one was really good. I couldn't put it down. Just when you think it couldn't get any better, it does!
It's about Robert Langdon. He's a Harvard professor of symbology. When in Paris on business he gets an urgent late-night phone call. A curator has been murdered inside the Louvre and by the body, a code he wrote before he died which includes the words "Find Robert Langdon". The police assume that this means that Robert killed him. With the help of the curator's cryptologist granddaughter he deciphers the code (slowly but surely). One code leads them to another, so on and so forth. Soon, they discover the curator was a member of the Priory of Sion - a real secret society whose members included Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli, Victor Hugo and Da Vinci. This society was rumored to know where the Holy Grail is.
I'd tell you more but I might ruin it.
It's a very exciting book.
Even if you, like me, aren't a fan of mystery novels, you should read this. It's very good.
I suggest you read it's prequel, Angels & Demons, first.
Rating: 
Summary: Fiction, Not Fact
Review: A story fascinatingly told. However, the author would like the reader to think there is some factual basis for his story -- and that's pure fallacy. Good imagination, but dreadful distortion of history.
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