Rating: 
Summary: A good diversion for a long trip
Review: It's easy to get lost in this story of religious artifacts and secret societies. The author stays away from romance, for the most part, which is a nice change. This is a classic thriller (minus the token romance) about a secret code related to Leonardo Da Vinci and a secret society that is hiding the Holy Grail, protecting it against the most conservative of Catholics. Ludicrous stuff, but entertaining.The narrator does a fairly good job, but I have a few quibbles. First, the female voice he does is not convincing and may make you laugh out loud. His French accent is not bad, but it is cookie-cutter variety. His British accent needs some work, and his Scottish is, well, not Scottish. He paces the story well, however, and keeps us entertained. In the abridging of the text, a few substantive errors have crept in. For one, the heroine lets slip to another character that her grandfather was involved in the secret society, but later on when she mentions it a second time to the same character he reacts with great surprise. The Da Vinci Code would likely make for a better read than a listen, but it will help pass the hours on the interestate.
Rating: 
Summary: Better than I hoped...
Review: it's funny - of all the negative reviews I've seen for this book, most seem to be from the type of people who expect their fiction to be completely factual (now does that make sense?) or from those who take exception to the religious suggestions/overtones of this work. I was caught up in this book from the very beginning (which is always a nice surprise) and couldn't put it down until I reached the end. The author did a marvelous job of bringing into the story an alternate religious view and tying everything together with multi-layered puzzles and symbols hidden within the works of DaVinci. It's fast paced and full of great action - I couldn't believe it all takes place over the course of two or three days! Some people can get so caught up in an exciting and plausible story that they wouldn't hear you if you shouted in their face - if this sounds like you, I'd say you'll love this book. If, on the other hand, you find it offensive that a vague reference to the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls is off by a few years, maybe you should look for some good non-fiction.
Rating: 
Summary: Much ado about nothing...
Review: It's hard to believe this book has generated so much hype. Brown is nothing much more than a Robert Ludlum wannabe; to call him a pale imitation is too charitable. The book's improbable and (rather) abrupt denouement makes one wonder whether Brown suddenly exhausted his store of tiresome plot twists or, alternatively, his publisher simply (and mercifully) placed a hard ceiling on his page allotment. Either way, the result is unsatisfying. While Ludlum is no Graham Greene (or even a John Le Carre), he certainly does this kind of thing much better than Brown. Brown's numerous historical canards have been well-documented elsewhere and serve only to further undermine this puerile effort. And to think "writers" like Brown are the modern torchbearers of a Western popular culture that once included such giants as Dickens....
Rating:
Summary: Excellent and entertaining. Will make a good movie.
Review: It's important to remember that this is "fiction" and isn't supposed to be a historical research paper on Christianity and Christ. It's fiction. It's a very good read. It's supposed to be and is a fun book. If you are looking for historical reference material...go to the Vatican website. The ending could have been better...but I still give the book 5 stars for entertainment value. I enjoyed it very much. It would make a good movie.
Rating:
Summary: Catholics in trouble again
Review: It's interesting how most of us accept the Bible without a lot of thought. Reading this book you may realize like I did that there were a lot of hands making a lot of decisions about the Bible that have changed our view of reality forever. And maybe not in a positive way. Brown reminds me of Ludlum in that there's always some major unthinkable thing that will happen in the very next chapter. It's a great read and the historical implications regarding our view of Jesus, the role of woman, the holy grail and da Vinci will never be quite the same.
Rating:
Summary: good for a car ride and afterwards to persue real research
Review: It's neither as good nor as bad as many of the reviews claim. I had great fun reading it on vacation. As a theology student, not everything mentioned by Brown is completely impossible, especially if one considers that what we have as the Bible and Christian tradition comes out of the social biases of the last 3,000 years and that they are incredibly patriarchal. One bite I have is that his characters conclude that if Jesus were married then he could not have been divine (away with the incarnation, resurrection, etc.). Maybe it's not that black and white. ... Have fun reading it and then DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH.
Rating: 
Summary: doesn't make it to the level of "lite" reading
Review: It's shameful that Dan Brown, his editors and Doubleday have marketed _The Da Vinci Code_ as an "intelligent" mystery novel, "layered with remarkable research and detail." The writing is astonishingly lazy. The proliferation of chapters is a cheap attempt to cover up the fact that the author isn't able to create a viable structure for the book, interweave elements of a plot or create complex characters. The sentence structure is poor throughout, and the figurative language is utterly inane. The research informing the book is pretty much what one expects from students in a freshmen creative writing class (at a mediocre school). Skip Brown's pseudo-intellectual posturing and read Umberto Eco instead.
Rating:
Summary: Whta difference do historical inaccuracies make?
Review: It's still an edge of the seat novel. That's why you buy a mystery like this. The interesting thing is that everyone wants to talk about whether it is or isn't Mary Magdalene in the Last Supper, but they don't want to talk about the Catholic Church burning over 5 million women at the stake over 3 centuries during the Inquisition. And why does the person in a picture controversy drag the book down to a single star? What a bunch of idiots.
Rating:
Summary: Who cares if you agree with his theory...its a GREAT book
Review: it's stupid that people criticize this book because they disagree with the point made by the main characters. Either way it's a thriller...shock after shock it will keep you enthralled. You don't have to agree with the rather revolutionary point (although somewhat ficticious) presented...it's fantastically written...meticulously edited...and an absolute joy to read.
Rating:
Summary: Great book
Review: Its a page turner. you won't put it down. It will make you want to read more books on scandals of the Catholic Church.
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