Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown : My Bestseller Experience

I finished reading the bestselling Da Vinci Code Book by Dan Brown some time back after being motivated by all the hype surrounding the bestseller book.

Since I rarely read a novel, I started my motivation to read by looking for the plot of the book -

“THE DA VINCI CODE heralds the arrival of a new breed of lightening-paced, intelligent thriller…surprising at every twist, absorbing at every turn, and in the end, utterly unpredictable…right up to its astonishing conclusion.”

Combine that with some old reports ‘Da Vinci Code’ sets a record, inspires a genre which says

“Dan Brown’s novel “The Da Vinci Code” celebrates a phenomenal first anniversary this week. The publisher claims it’s “the bestselling adult novel of all time within a one-year period. Doubleday, a division of Random House, announced Thursday that after 53 printings - including 14 consecutive weeks in first place on The New York Times bestseller list - there are 6.8 million copies in print.”

This was enough to get me started.

The story basically is - Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon investigates the de*th of elderly curator of the Louvre museum in Paris, the renowned Jacques Sauniere. Solving the Mystery, Langdon is stunned to discover that a baffling cipher leads to a trail of clues hidden in the works of Da Vinci; visible for all to see and yet ingeniously disguised by the painter. Langdon works with a French cryptologist, Sophie Neveu, and discovers more about the role of Opus Dei, a Vatican prelature and learns the late curator was involved in the Priory of Sion - a secret society whose members included Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli, Victor Hugo, and Da Vinci etc. and the curator sacrificed his life to protect the Priory’s most sacred trust, the location of a vastly important religious relic Holy Grail, hidden for centuries. Full of other interesting characters like Bishop Manuel Aringarosa, Andre Vernet, Sir Leigh Teabing, Remy Legaludec, Silas and Captain Bezu Fache, the book truly was a page turner.

Later in a bookshop, I had a chance to see a Special Illustrated Edition too that was a larger book which contained lots of images of locations in the book. Several other books and DVD’s are available to analyse or break the Da Vinci Code secrets.

The Da Vinci Code Movie will release in May 2006, directed by Ron Howard and starring
Tom Hanks …. Robert Langdon
Audrey Tautou …. Sophie Neveu
Ian McKellen …. Sir Leigh Teabing
Alfred Molina …. Bishop Aringarosa
Jean Reno …. Bezu Fache