I heard about it, but I'm not sure if I want to pick it up. If I start it, I have to finish it, regardless if it sucks or not. I heard that they are making a movie out of it, like run away jury, but I'm not sure. I'm going to have to read it first. bah!

I just read it and I thought it was amazing!!

Kind of annoying, how they made every end of chapter a "cliffhanger", but whatever.

There's even a cool little game at the end of the book where you have to solf your own little Da Vinci mystery online.

I started reading it last week, I'm only on chapter 7 or 8 right now.. but it's a little boring, but not horrible.

I'm gonna keep reading it because people swear it's better than sex, but so far.. it's like a dog licking peanut butter off my penis.

I read the first book of the series "Angels and Demons" while serving on Jury Duty. It was a page turner, and thought provoking at moments, but ultimately not very profound.

I bought Da Vinci Code..and know enough about the concept presented to imagine that plus the last book = same story / different 'events'. But I will read it anyway.

Dan Brown is an ok author. No better or worse than Grishom or King.

Dan Brown's books are extremely formulaic.

So much so that if I actually posted the formula it would be a spoiler for every single one of his books.

I do, however, still like them. They're a good way to pass a boring Sunday. Although I have noticed something else: they're all begging to be adapted to the silver screen. Each of his books would make a decent political/hi-tech/religious secret-society thriller.

They wouldn't do to shabbily at the box office I bet, although they wouldn't break any records either.

Anyways, I rate his books (or at least the four I read) best to worst like so:

Bestest: Da Vinci Code
Runner-up: Digital Fortress
Runner-down: Angels & Demons
Lusor: Deception Point

I just recently read The Da Vinci Code and thought it was both good and bad. It's absolutely worth reading because it's an enjoyable story. It was rather formulaic, but Dan Brown does a good job of slowly revealing more and more of the mystery to keep the plot interesting and the pages turning. I recommend it.

The revelations about the Holy Grail are complete crap and are insulting to my religious views, but I can forgive those faults because no matter what Brown believes, the book is still billed as fiction. Plus it's the controversy that made the book so popular and so recognized.

i guess i'll pick it up in the next few days.

"The Da Vinci Code" is okay, if you like your fiction easily digestible. Shallow characters and plot twists you can see coming from a mile away. If you want to try for a bit more depth, read "Focault's Pendulum" by Umberto Eco. It's been a few years since it was published, so it's a bit dated, but it deals with the same theme. I found it a bit hard to read at first, but when you get in the groove, it's enjoyable.

I was about to say the exact same thing.

Angels & Demons and the Da Vinci Code are nearly identical stories. I enjoyed them both, but really they are nearly the same book. Deception Point and Digital Fortress deal with different things, and I enjoyed those as well. Seriously is right about the formulaic nature, but it's still fast paced and exciting to me.

Yeah...nfg05 and Seriously say what I was trying to say.

I originally almost wrote and said 'It's decent PULP FICTION'. But I figured that comes across too judgemental. Especially from a guy that thoroughly enjoys the "Star Wars" lines of pulp novels along with Tom Clancy and Stephen King.

Pulp is right up my alley.

Seriously said it best. Decent reading material to pass time, not anything as a candidate of classic fiction. At least King has several books that I can argue strongely for a 'classic'.

People always want to jump to the conclusion that calling something pulp fiction is calling it bad. Calling something pulp just means that it isn't exactly deep. Many of those books are still fun to read, but there isn't much there besides entertainment value. Of course, many pulp books fail to entertain, and those are the bad ones.

Agreed. And I am the king of pulp. Books, movies, tv...that's why I said I wanted to steer away from referring to Dan Brown's work that way...but in fact it's exactly what it is.

I bought the book on Amazon a couple weeks ago because everyone said it was a "must read" book. I thought the summary was already a bit on the uninteresting side (my personal taste in books) - but I thought it was worth a try. I'll probably read it in a few months when I'm done with the other 10+ books I ordered. I'm not surprised that the reviews here lean to more "not worth it really."

Well, I think our reviews lean towards more of 'popcorn' book. And that's that. I will start mine sometime this weekend but I already expected it to be VERY SIMILAR to book 1 which was alright but predictable.

What made this book so amazing in my opinion was not the fact that it was a great piece of literature, but the way that Brown wove so many facts into his novel. It’s not just “crap” that Brown is hypothesizing. He spent years researching before writing the book. I don’t want to discuss specific points because that would ruin the plot for those of you who have not yet read the Da Vinci code, but all of the cults, cult activities, and information about the Bible are true. There are links from his website to places where they discuss the gospels that were left out of the Bible and critiques of various paintings.

As far as insulting u’r religious views, as stated in the Da Vinci code, there is nothing wrong with questioning u’r religion. Ask questions and search for the answers instead of writing them off as garbage.

Well that’s my 2 cents.
I’m off to play poker.

Two comments to follow that up with:

• It's not a great piece of literature, and the only people who claim it is haven't read this season's list from the Oprah's Book Club, which is undoubtedly great literature..
• You are entitled to your opinion, but that doesn't make it any less wrong.

Hmm... Yeah i didn't express my thought clearly. What i was trying to say was that I agree that it is not at the same level as other great pieces of literature, but still deserves respect because of the way that Brown wove fact and fiction together.

Does that make sense?
hope so.

I don't like the book. Dan Brown sucks as an author. He is re-releasing a book called "Angels and Demons" that flopped a few years back trying to surf the tidal wave this book caused. The only thing that sold this book is that it challenges mainstream Christianity. By doing that Brown ensured two things: 1)Fundamentalist Christians would read it and hate it, and 2) Strong non-Christians would read it and view it as fact. As DMBrules said, it is a weaving "of fact and fiction" but unfortunately Brown does not make the distinction clear for his readers who are uninformed. All in all, it was a thought-provoking read but a bit bland and opportunistic.

Well the same thing could be said about the Bible, you really don't know what is fact or fiction. For instance, the creation story, adam and eve, its impossible for humanity to start up from one man and one woman... we would be walking inbred freaks!!

Anyways, Angels and Demons is better than DaVinci Code in my opinion. I would say read A&D first then read DV Code.

I've liked digital fortress the best of all of his so far, because there are no underlying themes, just a million plot twists. da vinca code was interesting, but it barely scratched the surface of the whole thing. Try "The Templar Revalation" for a more factual look at what Dan Brown based his book on.

A&D was ok, I mainly liked all the art references.

All the information in the book was believed to be true. The problem is what he leaves out. Example: "over 80 Gospels were considered being put into the official canon of the Bible, but only 4 made it in." Says it was due to Church politics and whatnot. Not true. All four canonical Gospels were written in the first century, all the other were written much later, in the second or third. The Gospel of Mary Magdalene has been placed betwee 120 and 180. Not exactly a reliable source, it is?

Incidentally, the Priory of SIon was a hoax, and Dan Brown's portrayal was inaccurate anyway. I think Wikipedia has some good info on it.

I don't feel like writing an actual post, so I'll just throw this Reuters article at you.

Paris tourists seek 'Da Vinci Code' clues

Well, I did end up reading that book. I ... wouldn't call it profound or accurate. I won't say the book sucks, but it's turned me off from the author permanently. Mediocre is my last word on the subject.

I read the book and enjoyed it, it had a few interesting things that i hadnt know of, and expanded my views a bit.... i think that main reasoning behind wether or not you like the book has to do alot with your religous stand point... because no one likes their beliefs thrown to the ground and stomped on. i dont think that that should stop you from enjoying a good writer, take the book for what it is... "fiction". a person wrote it to sell and make money, chances are he may be wrong on a few subjects... and if you look at if from a completely nuetral stand point and you still dont like it, THEN you can say he sucks.

Somehow I doubt the fact that Eve disliked it had ANYTHING to do with her religious beliefs.

It was a decent story. I found it contradictory to much of my faith system and certainly worth exploring in concept. But plot wise, story wise, thriller wise...it wasn't exceptional.

IMO, not his best work, but still a good read. I enjoyed Angels and Demons alot more.

I found Da Vinci choppy at best "and then we do this and this and this". The mystery wasn't as engaging. It read too much like a screenplay, like what Michael Crichton has become.

I did enjoy the epilogue. Redeem much of the book for me.

This probably doesn't deserve its own thread, but

Here's some stuff.

Apparently this is just a fun thing to write about.

Well i started reading angels and demons.. i liked it alot now i just started the da vinci code not to bad so far

Awesome! Way to revive a dead thread. Dude please No more Clooney impersonations in dead threads.

I read Angels and Demons, I'm not really into analyzing if an Author sucks or not, but I enjoyed it.

I just read Da Vinci Code, and... did not realy like it. The end realy suck bad!!

You really suck bad.

The first day of my third year Quest for the Historical Jesus class my professor came right out and told everyone that the book is a load of shit and should be in the fiction section of the bookstores beside harry potter and goosebumps.

The book isn't a load of shit, because it's already labeled as fiction. It's the people who read the book and assume it's historically accurate who are, themselves, loads of shit.

All four of his books are excellent. If you liked one you'll definitely like his others. Check 'em out.

I worked at a bookstore for a year with a relative Christian focus, and the people that would come in and bitch about the book... its so ridiculous

It's fiction and listed in the fiction section. He takes some basic facts, and then mixes in a whole lot of fiction. It's best quality is that its a page-turner, and relatively enjoyable.

And maybe I'm nitpicking and this is pointless (esp. months later) but:



From my understanding, John wasn't first century either, but rather early second century. Also, wasn't the gospel of Thomas also considered to be contemporary?

Of course, if a copy of the Q documents existed, that would be something, and completely change Christianity, but it doesn't exist anymore, so there you have it.

These are the approximate dates that i got from my Quest for the Historical Jesus course.

John 90-100 C.E.
Mark 60-70 C.E.
Matthew 80 C.E.
Luke 80-90 C.E.

So John was pretty much a very late 1st century source.

One of my favorite non cannonical gospels is the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, which deals with Jesus's chilhood. One story is about how when Jesus was a kid another kid pissed him off so little Jesus killed him. I can't remember if that was in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas or another one of the infancy Gospels.

This may be somewhat of a spoiler...its really just a lot of theory.

Haha, I very much enjoyed the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. There is nothing better than Jesus zapping little kids. Its also fun to read the later Gospels, because you can see how much they really started to dislike Judaism.

As for Brown, while his story truly is fiction, its the fact that he claims it is truth that gets to me. Not that there is anything wrong with it, but he certainly is taking a rather feminist/Foucaultian view of the Gospels, and the Catholic Church itself. Admittedly, religion has tended towards the patriarchal, but the surge in feminist attempts to retroject their own beliefs back into history annoys me, and that is exactly what Brown does with his "sacred feminine". In ancient Judaism, the idea that God had a wife was certain a substrand of the Temple culture, but later on it seems as if the idea of Sophia took on that role. As with Christianity, we have the Virgin Mary who fulfills that sacred feminine, but obviously a cult that doesn't engage in chastity rituals ruins the sexual nature of the book, whereas having the Holy Grail be what it is makes it a best seller.

New Age spirituality and wicca (I believe) don't fill the spiritual hole left by the Enlightenment because they are relatively new attempts (devoid of or full of contrived history), that don't appeal to our religious nature so much as Christianity (or any major world/tradition filled religion) does. However, Christianity, being set in tradition, turns people off. If they can learn that Jesus just isn't both fully human and divine, and but just human, that seems to make spirituality more earthy, and subsequently, gives back to those new age religions the sense of history they so sorely lack...but that is one man's rant for today.

Im acctually a big fan of Dan brown ive read all of his books. And yes I do realize that they all follow a formula. Anyhoo I liked both "The Da Vinci Code" and "Angels and Demons" however i liked AaD a lil bit better

this has to be my favorite thing said in the post. it goes to show that the assuming public don't realize they picked up the book in the fiction section - i understand this is reiterated multiple times in this post. if it's in the fiction section, take it as fiction or do some research or buy one of the "truth behind" books.

brown has released an illustrated version that if i'm not mistaken, shows images and pictures of what he's citing as imperial evidence for the sake of the story. dogma has to be the worst thing possible...

I found it an interesting read but i found myself wanting to kick brown in the nuts for building up the book and letting it flop like Kerik's bid for Homeland Security Chief. hype with no load-blowing.

Normally Yamcha is a complete fuck-nut...but he has a point here. If Brown would have written the book about Buhda only a few people (in America) would have cared. His book is a load of crap and this book is not good. I did not enjoy it and wish I would have never read it.

Brown is fucken hack. Go read Robert Ludlum if u actually like the subject.

The best refutation of Brown's POS book has for an author (or co-author maybe) Ben Witherington III. Pick it up and see the light!

I just finished the vesion with all the pictures in it today and can honestly say that it is MY favorite book of all time. I think it will translate really well into a movie. Does anyone know a good place to find the facts vs fiction vs truths people actually do believe that were around before the book. I mean stuff like the Mary Magdeline topic and all that. Also does anyone who read it have a suggestion of a similar book I may like. Thanks a lot in advance for any help

You should also read Angels & Demons, Deception Point and Digital Fortress (all by Dan Brown). If you like the illuminai/secret society theme, try Focault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco or The Historical Illuminatus Chronicles by Robert Anton Wilson. They're both interesting reads.

As for refuting Dan Brown's clever mix of fact and fiction...I find the internet to be an invaluable tool. I had never heard the "Mary Magdelane was Jesus' wife" theory before reading the book. But it could be floating around out there. It's a big world. I read the version without the pictures and was constantly checking "facts" and looking at the artwork referenced in the story on the internet.

EDIT: damn quasi-html tags

NO!!!!! Do not, even if your life depends on it, at any point read Digital Fortress. The book represents everything that is wrong with the contemporary American novel: It desperately wants to be Tom Clancy or Michael Crichton, but doesn't even succeed at that, ending up reading more like the young-adult adaptation of the Sandra Bullock movie The Net. Furthermore, Brown is almost obsessed with talking about how sexy his main character is; no idea why. Finally, the book lacks either craft or style, whipping a story out in a couple-hundred pages but not really saying anything.

Digital Fortress is, bar none, the worst book that I have ever read. And I've read some pretty bad books, too, at the recommendation of others (Shadow of the Hegemon immediately comes to mind). However, this one tops them all. Digital Fortress, and most of Dan Brown's work, really, appeals to a lot of people because it lacks craft; because it's uncomplicated. It's perfect for the people who are too fucking stupid to be able to make it through real literature, such as East of Eden, One Hundred Years of Solitude, or even Catch-22. Dan Brown's books are easily approachable and easily read, which makes people who don't read books feel smart, and reality never crashes through to tell them, "You read a book that's written at the tenth grade reading level." That might be fine for those of you who refer to the fifth grade as 'senior year,' but don't you think that you might want to try a little something more challenging next time?

YES, love Catch-22. If I'm forced to pick a favorite novel, that's what I'll pick. I give many extra points for humor.

I mostly stay away from modern novels, but isn't that statement pretty much true of all the new popular novels?

Dan Brown creates good disposable fiction. It may not always make you think and it may not be the most profoud, but it is entertaining. Deception Point and Digital Fortress are, admittedly, less engaging and thought-provoking than Angels & Demons or The Davinci Code, but they are entertaining fiction. I hadn't made the connection with The Net previously, but I can see the validity of your statements.

There's nothing wrong with occassionally adding a little bit of fiction from the "empty, but entertaining" school of fiction to the mix. As long as this is not the extent of one's reading. The important thing is to read.

Reading is fundamental.

dan brown writes airport books.

there.

that's the best damn way i can say it.