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Summary: Finally found three!
Review: Our book club finally found three books that we all agree are stellar. They are: THE LIFE OF PI by Martel, Jackson McCrae's THE BARK OF THE DOGWOOD, and THE DA VINCI CODE. While all three are completely different, they are nevertheless great reads--each for different reasons. The Martel is fable/fiction and quite original, while the McCrae is hilarious yet horrifying, with scenes not to be believed! But the DA VINCI was enjoyed for what it was--a very accessible, quick and easy read, with some interesting facts and some interesting half-truths thrown in for good measure. Great fun!Also recommended: LIFE OF PI by Martel, and McCrae's BARK OF THE DOGWOOD
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Summary: Great book club choice!
Review: Our book club read this book this past month. It sparked a lot of conversation and we all found it very interesting. You know a book is good when the majority of people reading it felt compelled to stay up really late every night reading until they finished it. In other words, we could not put it down. The codes were so interesting. Hight recommend this one.
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Summary: Wow!
Review: Outside of a night's sleep, some digressions to check Brown's facts against my copy of Chadwick's "Early Church" and some Google searches, I completed "The Davinci Code" straight through. The author took a fringe conjecture on the life of Christ and spun off a wonderful tale of suspense and international intrigue. While I was completely absorbed by the backdrop of this story - theology, history, cryptology, Da Vinci's eccentricity, scheming Vatican, and secret societies - the foreground of this story was Good, but, in the end, wound up too neatly to be Great. It was as self-contained as a weekly TV drama series. Regardless, I highly recommend for anyone enjoying history of modern religions, conspiracy theory, and in need of escape.
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Summary: An Admonition To Religious Attacks
Review: Over Christmas we took and exciting and wonderful trips from the cavernous chambers of Parisian museums to monasteries on the heights of the Pyrenees mountains to intriguing Papal castles to churches in foggy London to green pastures of the Scottish landscape: our trip companion was Dan Brown and our itinerary The Da Vinci Code. A present from my niece, Karen, the novel was an exciting, thought provoking and revealing experience. Running like a 'bull' through the twits and turns of its intriguing plot, it shook our inner souls stimulating at times but agitating at others. We groped wearing a habit, the tortures and torments (aside praying) to keep the flesh from temptation. It uncovered the workings of powerful cabals, bent on destroying our sacred institutions, with their ulterior motives and hidden agendas; by infiltrating first and sabotaging afterwards our deepest believes forged by the very establishments with which they dared to get affiliated. Doubtless Dan's novel helped strengthen the pillars over which our Roman Catholic upbringing rests, to the point of showing the vulnerability of well-intended living persons and how easily it is to manipulate them recklessly by exploiting their humbled origins and polluting their souls with hateful and dubious claims; we don't dispute the validity of some facts, mathematical or otherwise, but diabolical as means to an end. He did that by bringing a greater introspection and appreciation of the masters' art but in a questionable time line: Da Vinci did paint an interpretation of The Last Supper some fifteen-hundred years after the fact. With such a clever and rapid prose fact and fiction is hard to part. Readers beware! It's just a well-written novel.
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Summary: A good read, very quick
Review: Overall a good read, it goes by very quickly and can turn into a page turner. Unlike some other "page turners" this one does require the reader to pay close attention to figure out the case. Some of the aspects of the book were a bit of a let down as they were rather predictable, but probably seemed more so because of the unexpected twists and turns the Brown offers. A good book if you are on the road and want something to read at the airport.
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Summary: Uncover the Secrets!
Review: Overall, avid readers of well crafted stories will be mesmerized and thrilled with "The Da Vinci Code". (To qualify this statement, I refer to "well crafted stories" as meaning commonly accepted top library recommendations, critics' picks, and book club selections like "The Secret Life of Bees", "Mystic River", "My Fractured Life", and "The Way the Crow Flies.") A mystery that exists on multiple levels, "The Da Vinci Code" masterfully traces the secret life of a distinguished man as revealed to his cryptographer daughter through clues only after his untimely demise.
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Summary: Just Wish the Book Were More Respectful of Christianity
Review: Overall, I enjoyed this book but I was uncomfortable reading it when it became particularly critical and dismissive of Christian beliefs. I think the author could have accomplished the same goal of creating a compelling "villain" if he had just focused on the extreme forms of Christianity, such as Opus Dei, without so contemptuously dismissing most fundamental Christian beliefs (especially in the character of Teabing). Aside from that rather large problem I had with the book, I have to admit I kept wanting to know what happened next.
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Summary: mmm
Review: Overall, I found this book to be extremely cheesy. But there were interesting ideas. The times set aside for holidays were chosen based on existing pagan holidays. Romanesque churches still standing today are believed by some scholars to be the work of rural pagan craftsmen who put sly references to their belief of male/female equality and such. Oh! And this document concerning PS leadership includes French film maker Jean Cocteau.
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Summary: It's fiction, people!
Review: Overall, I found this book to be very entertaining. The theories were interesting, the plot moved quickly and there was plenty of suspense. No, the writing wasn't spectacular and the characters lacked depth, but so what? It was a good, fun read. Don't take this book too seriously. It's fiction, people! If you're worried/offended/disturbed about the theories contained within, get off your duff and do your own research...then you can form an educated opinion. This is a novel, not a theological treatise!
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Summary: good read for water cooler conversation
Review: Overly religious types should consider other reading material but you have to give kudos to the author for making theological discussions such a hot topic. A very interesting premise which involves the Holy Grail, the Knights Templar and the Priory Of Sion. Brown beautifully interweaves fact and fiction concerning these fascinating subjects and prodded me to read related works and research. Now onto the problems I had with this novel: annoying references to previous novel (the Vatican incident); too many of the scenes are just outright unbelieveable and the inclusion of hollywood blockbuster action scenes forces the reader to question whether Brown was counting on a movie deal as he wrote; major reasoning flaws scattered throughout the second half of the novel (to name just one, a mirror image that the most brillant code detecting minds couldn't figure out? come on); and lastly, the totally smarmy ending tempted me to scream. Overall, an entertaining read.
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