I'm reading it right now.  Great book.

I can highly recommend the series 'A Dream of Eagles' by Jack Whyte.  Romans in Britain tied in with Arthurian legend.  Incredible series of books.

There was never any intention of this book being non-fiction.  It is a very readable synthesis of many themes and facts, some historically accurate but many of the others ranging from myth and invention to non-corroborated 'historical fact'.

As such it joins a vast company of books which, though fiction, give some sort of a warped overview of history.  Nowt wrong with that as long as they are flagged up as fiction.  Many people will read this book and take it as literal truth.  For a better coverage of this area in non-fiction read 'Foucault's Pendulum' by Umberto Eco.  Far better written and in many ways more accurate but strangely enough, no better as a good page-turning read.  In fact I read Da Vinci in one day, couldn't put it down.  Eco took some getting into but well worth it.

One pertinent detail is the account of the activities of Opus Dei.  Angela Kelly, the minister of Education is associated with this cult.  It raises fascinating thoughts about whether she wears a spiked garter on her leg to remind her of her responsibilities to Opus Dei while speaking as minister.....

The fascination of books like this for me is that they are read by people searching for something that they are not finding in everyday life.  In this respect Da Vinci, Arthurian legend and even one time standards like 'The Golden Bough' are indications of the state of thinking in great swathes of the population.  The same could be said about the old Pagan religions, they were doing exactly the same thing.  So don't knock them, they may be evidence of the survival deep in people's minds of the same driving forces that gave birth to 'religion' well before Christianity.

i loved The Da Vinci Code....i read it about 3 times before i fully understood it and i asked granadad...but i really really liked it because it was so diffrent to anyhting else iv ever read..and it kept me wondering what was going to happen next...Angels and demons was very diffrent to The Da Vinci Code.....i didnt enjoy it queit as much really...but i bought it for mum for mothers day...We so we will ahve to get the other books aswell...

I enjoyed the Davinci Code also but I didn't try to make sense of it.  I did find that there was a twist every once in a while with predictably timing.  Sort of like driving along a hilly road.  

I read it last summer and enjoyed it but as you say Christy, you better not reading too far into it. I'm working my way through the rest of Dan Brown's books slowly. Some are quite similar and with one in particular (can't remember what it was called now!) I had to keep checking what it was called as I thought I was reading Da Vinci Code again.

This last one that I'm reading, Deception Point, does have a different plot and religion is not involved which makes a refreshing change with his work.

Yesterday, we got the adult education classes brochure that comes out about 3 or 4 times a year(WEA). Apart from the Photoshop courses...which I am very interested in doing...I was stunned to see that one of the courses was Unravelling the Da Vinci Code. I haven't read the book. I probably will one day, if a copy falls into my outstretched hands, but I am not one to read things simply because they are the flavour of the month.

I used to like Neville Shute years...read some of his stuff years ago. I have read the one you mentioned Stanley. Also, as a teenager, I read "On the Beach"....and it left me depressed for weeks. I just couldn't see the point of going on in life! The movie wasn't a patch on my own imagination. It may have been the fact that I was an impressionable teenager at the time, but it certainly de-based me for quite a while.

I enjoy Stephen King too...