Rating: 
Summary: Great, interesting read.
Review: This book wont go down as great literature, but it could potentially change the thoughts of a lot of people. It did me.The story is fairly tight and only slows down in a couple of spots. Mr. Brown provides a fair amount of history, but its well worth it. I look forward to reading some of this other books.
Rating: 
Summary: BRILLIANT
Review: This book would make an excellent movie. I am a producer and am trying to access the rights to this book to make that happen. It's that good!!! And I don't like reading. I only read this on a flight across the altlantic because my wife had it handy and I was bored. I do have favorite books. My favorite book of all time is called, The Little Guide To Happiness. And as I said, I'm not much of a reader, so for me to like these books, they must be good.
Rating:
Summary: A great mystery thriller with lots of twists
Review: This book's plot twisted and turned and as I got more and more engrossed in the story, I realized that not everything was as it seemed. I love mysteries and puzzles and this book wove both together flawlessly. I also checked out the Davinci Code's website after I finished reading the book and was delighted to solve the puzzles that led me into the site. You can't enter the site without solving them first. I was impressed that finally an author knew how to offer more to his readers on the web than the typical author bio and reviews of the book! I couldn't put this book down and would recommend it for anyone who loves a good mystery, and a good puzzle.
Rating:
Summary: Like a well painted Da Vinci
Review: This book, a brilliant foray for relatively unknown author Dan Brown (though be sure to check out the Robert Langdon thriller that came before, "Angels and Demons"), "The Da Vinci Code" is as engaging as it is smart. The factoids contained within the work ( the "Divine Proportion" being a terribly interesting example) are well-spaced and many are totally mind-boggling. They teach the reader without drawing him/her into the spiraling abyss of a pedants mind. The characters are humanly possible, quite life-like actually, and the scenes are well-described, yet still seem to stay to-the-point. I won't bore you with a long-winded summary, considering you have probably perused one in one of the previous reviews. The bottm line is that this book is a great read and should be enjoyed by all who can get their hands on it. As Poe once wrote, "Quoth the Raven, read this book." (hehe)
Rating: 
Summary: Pulp Fiction with a Twist
Review: This book, as expressed by other reviewers, was definitely a page turner and a bit of a mystery/thriller with a great deal of disjointed symbolism from history, religion, and science thrown in. It definitely falls into the "pulp" category however, rather than a substantive exploration of the subjects it addresses, due to the thinness of the plot, stock characters, forced interjection of romance, endless pop culture references, aand predictable "surprise" ending. Hopefully, it feeds the reader enough tidbits of knowledge about Paganism and early Christianity to encourage delving into When God was a Woman, The Chalice and the Blade, and other non-fiction books. The Mists of Avalon, a fictional feminist revision of the Arthurian legend, is a much better book that tells a story and leads the reader to knowledge.
Rating: 
Summary: Little research and less plot
Review: This book, doubtless making its author a fortune, is an example of the credulity of even the editorial reviews when making judgments. I teach religious studies, and have no objection to reading creative reinterpretations or fictional accounts. But the so-called "historical" basis and "sweep of Western culture" are really erroneous or absent in this book. Nor did I find it thrilling, which could have made up for its single-minded Catholic conspiracy theory versus real people scenario. I found the characters wooden and the premise absurd.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant, engrossing, fast-paced and unique - A must read
Review: This book, in short is about "Holy Grail" and its frenetic chase by 2 parties. The book starts by describing the murder of curator of the famous Louvre museum in Paris (Jacqueas Saunere). At the murder scene, the curator, while in last dying moments, leaves a very curious encrypted message, presumably for his granddaughter Sophie (and an American symbology professor from Harvard, Robert Langdon. Since he openly leaves Langdon's name but having never met him before, Police take him as their prime suspect so there is a bit of police chase too). Langdon discovers that Saunere was a member of a very prestigious ancient secret sociery called "Priory of Scion", whose previous grand-members included greats such as Da-Vinci and Newton. In short, Scion guards an ancient secret, so powerful and explosive in nature, that it could rock the foundations of modern church and christinaty. This secret is related to "Holy grail". The church wants to find this grail and its references to destroy them to save their skin (and maintain their powerful stature) and they have made such attempts in the past. The Scion, a natural adversary of Church, guards this secret. However on the ominous day of Saunere's murder, all the 4 prominent members of the Scion are killed by someone (presumably in Church's payroll) endangering the loss of this secret forever. In order to make the secret hiding place of "Holy Grail" as uncompromisable as possible, Saunere has designed a "keystone" (hidden in a locker of a swiss bank), which holds the map to this secret place. This keystone is a double layered cylinder of 5 attached pieces and each piece has letters A to Z on its rim. Each layer can only be opened by a password (by aligning all 5 pieces correctly), which can be derived by finding answers to his mystique and symbolic verses. (Note that due to ingenious design, one cannot just smash the keystone and hope to retrieve the map). Langdon, who is faced with murder charges and Sophie, must race against time, away from the Police and a shodowy adversary (who is also after the keystone) to find this secret location. On the positive sides, the chapters are short, fast-paced, intricately woven within each other and interesting. The author takes his time to slowly divulge many important details, which keeps your curiosity burning. The book is full of tremendous general knowledge, both interesting and mind-boggling. You get a crash course in the history of church, paganism, works of da Vinci, symbolism and much more. On the drawbacks side, I was left with a few apprehensions in the end. We know who kills Saunere and other Scion members but it wasn't clear how he knew their names through such secrecy? Also in the end, though Langdon knew the secret location, the story ends right there (with Langdon getting a kiss and a date from Sophie - how predictable and Hollywoodish). At least some allusion to something interesting (like Langdon becoming Scion's grand master or he revealing the sacred secrets etc etc) would have been nice. What was the point of all this odyssey if this secret remains secret forever (It is told in the end that this secret will never be revealed as assumed otherwise)? It looks as if Robert Langdon won himself a French chick for all his toils and endangerement to his life...hardly a worth price. It left me with an empty hollowness. Maybe the author wanted to show (again symbolically) that Langdon, who through his manuscripts "obliviously" staggered around the pieces of the truth (through the story, it is revealed that Langdon almost knows the truth - he knows all the pieces like the Scion, the holy grail, the mystique symbology etc etc) only connected this jigsaw puzzle in the end and saw the truth in its pristine light. Maybe all this ordeal was great for Langdon, the true historian, who for this shred of immensely important historical knowledge would happily risk his life. But books are not written for characters, they are written for readers. As a reader, I was totally dissatisfied with the end. There are also flaws in the character behavior. Some brief examples are Sophie's estranged relation with her loving grandfather (Saunere) for a full 10 years, Langdon's decision to run when he knows he was falsely framed in Saunere's murder rather than surrender and take much better odds through legal means, the bank's manager's (Vernet) helping to Sophie and Langdon to avoid the police just to keep his bank's name out of the news - in all these instances, characters behave unnaturally. However this is a "must read" because its good parts far outweigh a few anamolies.
Rating:
Summary: Terrific
Review: This book, was a terrific book. It left you in suspense to the end. The climax of the book keep increasing as you read.
Rating:
Summary: Why do people want to believe that fiction is fact?
Review: This book, which "everybody" is reading, is truly fiction and not good fiction at that. The author unites fact with semi-fact with fiction to give gullible people a sense that what he writes is all true. Wrong. I mean, really: "Amon-Isis" = "Mona Lisa"? Please. The omelette begins with what, for some reason, "everybody" thinks is sinister: the Pope, the Vatican and Opus Dei. (Yes, OD really exists but is mostly made up of toothless old men less functional that the Knights of Columbus.) Read Perez-Reverte ("Seville Communion") or countless other fictional treatments of the Vatican "secret police" for better entertainment. Add the myth that keeps coming back, the Holy Grail, and stir in another secret society (that which protects the Grail = descendants of Jesus and Mary Magdalene) and you have what seems to be a plausible story. It ain't, folks: it's fiction. Read it that way and enjoy it that way. But DVC is no more authoritative than "Harry Potter," no matter how much you want to believe it.
Rating:
Summary: Could not put book down
Review: This books is a real page turner. Perhaps a little too intense in some parts, but it will keep you on the edge of your seat. This book is unlike any other. You will learn a lot while you are being entertained! I also recommend Christmas Gifts, Christmas Voices. (See my Amazon review of book.)
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