Rating: 
Summary: best book you ever read??
Review: I suppose if you have read 2 books in your life, one was the Da Vinci Code and the other one was, I dunno, let's say Nancy Drew and the Hidden Decoder Ring, well then I guess DVC might be the best book that you have ever read.Sorry to sound so condescending, but Dan Brown started it. The Da Vinci Code is juvenile level writing. At least Carolyn Keene never pretended to be anything more than pure pulp entertainment for the preteen set. If you are under the age of 13 or have nostagia for the days when a good mystery required minimal brain effort, then this Code's for you.
Rating:
Summary: It [stinks]
Review: I swore to never read anything off the best seller list again, so I got what I deserved. It started off with some interesting premises, meant to make the reader think he/she must be rather clever to understand the seemingly arcane knowlege possessed by the characters. By about page two hundred I realized that this book had gone nowhere, that the "hidden knowlege" was a bunch of pseudointellectual bull, and that the reason I kept falling asleep every time I picked it up was because it was deadly boring. I kept trying to continue but it was impossible. Phooey. Stick with independent publishers. What a bunch of tripe.
Rating:
Summary: The Da Vinci Code
Review: I think 1 star is a little bit too high a rating for this book that is a non-stop sermon on the merits of Goddess Worship. We are told in the beginning that all of the facts are accurate. Really, Mr. Brown, you couldn't find one real source to list for your gullible readers in a bibliography? We are expected to ignore 4500 manuscripts of the New Testament pre-dating Constantine, just because your make believe Harvard professor tells us to trust him? I hope your readers who have no previous knowledge of church history will be led to begin educating themselves. I would suggest A Case For Christ by Lee Strobel, or The New Evidence That Demands A Verdict by Josh McDowell; two good historians rather than a novelist with an agenda. Reading from their list of source materials will keep one busy for years and hopefully away from trash like The Da Vinci Code. I would also recommend C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity; there is a real Oxford University professor for you. Funny how the fictitious professor never does find the evidence that everyone, even supposedly the big bad church knows exists. I'm waiting for the sequel, Mr. Brown.
Rating: 
Summary: A Definite Must Read
Review: I think a true example of a talented author is one who can deliver a serious message while wrapping it inside a most entertaining story. Dan Brown has achieved exactly that. This is the best mystery novel I have read in sometime, and the revelations that Brown submits are fascinating. It has encouraged me to study Da Vinci, The Bible, The Templar Knights and everything Renaissance. This is one book that everyone, especially Christians, need to read. The story DOES NOT lag in the middle, that is where all the good stuff is. I promise you will not de disappointed.
Rating: 
Summary: Just like movie blockbusters!!
Review: I think overall the book contains a lot of educational information but the attempt for suspense failed. I was able to read it and put it down for a number of days. The suspense parts were ok but they are so mainstream and not original, it is all something that we have either seen in movies or read in other books. And of course, the mass appeal it is not very attractive.
Rating: 
Summary: it's fiction!
Review: I think that people are forgetting that this is a novel. This is fiction, not fact, it's just something fun to read, and in that respect it is wonderful. Dan Brown does not pretend that everything that he presents is sound fact, rather he includes a page in the beginning outlining what is fact. Do not confuse this with a historical document, but along the same lines, don't expect this to be historically accurate. What is historically accurate anyway? It is good read, hard to put down, and I loved it.
Rating:
Summary: Runs out of steam
Review: I think the book does a good job of gripping you early with a lot of unknown trivia about Da Vinci, Mary M, etc., but eventually runs out of steam...Left me with a sense of what was this all about
Rating: 
Summary: Somewhat Engaging
Review: I think the core problem is that once you figure out what the puzzle is, you lose interest. It's not a very captivating object of mystery for most people. And the repetition of everything--the endless puzzles, chases, clues, villain/hero determinations. Yawn. Best part was the first 30 pages. Last few pages were hardly an ample reward for enduring this long, twisted, predictable tale. Quel surpris! The Sophie's entire family REALLY didn't die in a car accident? What moron couldn't have foreseen that? Get out of here? Sophie, the gorgeous code expert, and Robert, the warm-hearted, lonely, academic live happily ever after?
Rating:
Summary: Innaccurate & manipulative research
Review: I think the Da Vinci Code is a historical stretch at best (understatement of the century!)... It opens with the grisly murder of the Louvre's curator inside the museum. The crime entangles hero Robert Langdon, a tweedy professor of symbolism from Harvard, and the victim's granddaughter, cryptologist Sophie Nevue. Together with crippled millionaire historian Leigh Teabing, they flee Paris for London one step ahead of the police and a mad albino Opus Dei priest/assassin named Silas who will stop at nothing to prevent them from finding the "Grail." But despite the frenetic pacing, at no point is action allowed to interfere with a good lecture. Before the story comes full circle back to the Louvre, readers face a barrage of codes, puzzles, mysteries, and conspiracies.... all riddled with factual error.... Short historical backdrop:
With the exception of the Nicolaites (1st century), the heretical Christian sect with rather loose morals mentioned in the Book of Revelation (Apocalypse), the first fights of the early Catholic Church were to defend the sanctity of the human body and the humanity of Christ. Thus, the Gnostics (1st to 3rd century), led by Basilides, Valentinus, Bardesanes, Tatian, and Marcion, taught that Christ was an eon, an intermediary of God with matter, and that physical existence was an evil to be escaped from by knowledge. Marcion's followers, for example, refused baptism to anyone who was married. Manicheism (3rd century), founded by Manes, taught that matter or the physical world was the cause of all evil. In one of the most extreme examples of the levels to which heterodox Catholics took this abhorrence of physical existence and sex, Origin, an earlier Christian writer, castrated himself. Note that his conduct was not approved by the orthodox Catholic Church. Against these heresies and excesses, Catholic bishops like St. Irenaeus and St. Augustine argued that matter or the physical world was NOT intrinsically evil and that Christ was in fact truly God AND man... spiritual and PHYSICAL. Given this backdrop, it is nothing short of absurd to suggest that the early Catholic Church attempted to suppress the "sacred feminine" and the sacredness of sex, while the Gnostics sought to preserve it. The Gnostics, like Marcion, were the ones who refused to baptize people who married and had sex. They were certainly not the champions of Mother Nature and the material world. He claims that goddess worship universally dominated pre-Christian paganism with the hieros gamos (sacred marriage) as its central rite. His enthusiasm for fertility rites in this book is clearly enthusiasm for sexuality, not procreation. The Da Vinci Code's etymology is also wrong at several points. Astonishingly, Brown claims that Jews in Solomon's Temple adored Yahweh and his feminine counterpart, the Shekinah, via the services of sacred prostitutes-possibly a twisted version of the Temple's corruption after Solomon (1 Kings 14:24 and 2 Kings 23:4-15). Moreover, he says that the Tetragrammaton YHWH derives from "Jehovah, an androgynous physical union between the masculine Jeh and the pre-Hebraic name for Eve, Ovah." YHWH did not in fact derive from Jehovah, but rather the other way round. In fact, Jehovah is the combination of the tetragrammaton JHWH (currently YHWH, but "J" also substituted for "Y" in the Middle Ages) and the vowels of the Hebrew word Adonai (Lord). "Jehovah" derived from "YHWH." When the Protestants translated the Bible into English, they didn't realize that the vowels inserted into the Hebrew text were the vowels of the Hebrew word for "Lord," not the vowels of the Hebrew word for "I am who am." (Sorry Jehovah Witnesses, but that's just a historical/archaeological fact). Until the 1500s, the word Jehovah didn't even exist! So.... no.... it is not a combination of an ancient male divinity Jeh and a female divinity Ovah... but nice try ;) Similarly, the Da Vinci Code's derivation of the word "pagan" is suspect. Yes, it is true that one translation of the Latin word "paganus" is "country dwellers," those who were last to convert to Catholicism. But another translation of the Latin word "paganus" is "civilian," those who did not enlist in God's army to fight against the Devil. Given the large number of Catholics who fled to the country to escape persecution and the number of Catholic desert hermits, the more plausible derivation of the word pagan, it seems to me, is "civilian," one who was too weak or cowardly to enlist in God's army. This military aspect of the Catholic Church is borne out by St. Paul's epistles urging his fellow Catholics to don spiritual armour and by the sacrament of Confirmation in which a seal (spiritual mark) was placed on the Catholic marking them a soldier of Christ just like a seal was placed on the Roman soldier marking him a soldier of the Roman emperor (remember how Crowe cuts out his "mark" in the movie Gladiator?). Even the Da Vinci Code's description and implications of the "Last Supper" is wrong. St. John (according to the Da Vinci Code this was really St. Mary Magdalene) is dressed in red and green, not red and blue like Our Lord. The Da Vinci Code argues that they wear the same colours because they're male and female, yin and yang. Also, the hand with the knife belongs to St. Peter, it isn't a hand without a body attached to it; St. Peter has his wrist bent on his side with the knife in it. Finally, the scene is not the Consecration ("This is my body"), which occurred after the meal, but the announcement of the betrayal. St. Peter is leaning over to St. John telling him to ask the Lord who the betrayer is. The list of inaccuracies in this book goes on and on... and much more detailed reviews have been done by many, particularly Christian scholars who have analysed his claims. These can be found at the following websites: http://www.crisismagazine.com/september2003/feature1.htm
http://www.christianitytoday.com/history/newsletter/2003/nov7.html Urgh! How can critics condone this book as an in-depth and well researched best-seller given the elementary mistakes and inaccuracies? (New York Daily News book reviewer trumpeted, "His research is impeccable.") It's only 'pull' factor is the age-old and much attempted tactic of shock through implications weaved into a mysterious fictional story that claims to be intertwined with well-researched historical facts. On the contrary, I would say this book contains highly erroneous research and its 'fictional' story is highly manipulative. Now that is factual.
Rating:
Summary: An riveting book
Review: I think the reviews of this book are almost as entertaining as the book itself, although they took a lot longer to read. This is an excellent pulling together of both fact and fiction. The factual aspects of the book, those that deal with the historical Jesus and the inner workings of the various churches and secret societies, are interesting enough to demand a read. Interwoven with it, however, is an enticing mystery story set in the modern world of politics and power. OPEN YOUR MIND when you read the book, and, if you choose, do your own research. The journey will be startling and very much worth it!
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