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|  | Author: Dan Brown
Publisher: Doubleday Books
List Price: $29.95
Buy Used: $9.70
as of 11/25/2009 04:18 CST details
You Save: $20.25 (68%)
New (141) Used (98) Collectible (26) from $9.70
Seller: big_river_books
Rating:  1778 reviews
Sales Rank: 3
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Hardcover
Edition: First Edition
Pages: 528
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.7
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.7
ISBN: 0385504225
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780385504225
ASIN: 0385504225
Publication Date: September 15, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Cover and pages may have some wear or writing. Binding is tight. We ship daily Monday-Friday. Delivery Confirmation included on all domestic orders.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1576-1580 of 1778
 ho-hum humanism September 20, 2009
Julia M. Walker (NY Finger Lakes)
12 out of 17 found this review helpful
A famous Princeton professor once received the following evaluation from a student whose father had clearly lectured him on the value of an Ivy education: "the lectures were boring, but long."
My academic friends make fun of me for reading Dan Brown, but, you know, I enjoy a good conspiracy yarn. And - although the stuff of Angels and Demons and The da Vinci Code is in my professional ballpark - I like seeing the material framed in a populist narrative, even if it's a bit abbreviated and gently twisted.
News flash: ironically - sadly? - my students are more receptive to Brown than to Elaine Pagels as an authority for the Mary v Peter shaping of Christianity, so there's actually a Dan Brown Bonus in the humanities classroom.
But this is a boring book.
Boring boring boring. It has all of Brown's weaknesses and none of his strengths. There are the flat characters, the unlikely plotting, the absurd chronology, but there's no zippy secret agenda compelling the reader's attention. The didactic passages fall with a dull thud and the dialogue is gruesomely banal. Tattoo Man simply doesn't stack up against the Roman Church as a worthy opponent. Washington DC is a poor third to Paris and Rome as a setting, nor does Brown offer us anything to up the stakes. I liked Sato and wanted to like Katherine, but the whole Solomon thing was just too cheesy for (even) escape reading.
The material on noetics is mildly interesting, but badly presented, and the Masonic stuff is sadly ho-hum. Brown's strategies for down-loading info have not grown more graceful with time - nor, indeed, has his writing -- nor have his editors offered any amelioration.
I anticipated it; I ordered it; I eagerly opened it.
I have tossed it aside. Save your money.
For a book that heralds the apotheosis of the human intellect (well, of the male human intellect with a touch of Star Wars) this makes a decent paperweight.
 Dissapointed September 20, 2009
Jorge Gonzalez (Florida)
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
Dan Brown's "The Lost Symbol" was a highly disappointing book. The writing was not that great and it was highly repetitive. The CIA Director of Security came across as a total buffoon. It did not present anything new or revealing about the secretive Masons.
It was a big letdown from "The DaVinci Code." Wait till you can find it in a used paperback bookstore and buy it for around $3.00.
 Atonement September 20, 2009
Gary Griffiths (Los Altos Hills, CA United States)
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
For Da Vinci Code fans suffering though Dan Brown's long hiatus, "The Lost Symbol", while formulaic, will not disappoint. Harvard professor Robert Langdon stays a lot closer to his Cambridge home this time around, as he is lured to Washington, DC, by old friend and mentor Peter Solomon, the ultra-wealthy head of the Smithsonian Institution. Wasting little time to get the adrenaline flowing, Solomon turns up kidnapped, leaving a grisly clue beneath the dome of the US Capitol Building. Soon Langdon scrambling for clues and playing hide-and-seek with a shadowy branch of the CIA in a frenzied attempt to save his friend's life. As with "Da Vinci' and "Angels and Demons" before it, ancient symbology and historical minutia is the core around which Brown spins the action, this time diving deep into the lore and secret rituals of the Masons, and the connection between the Masons and the US Founding Fathers. The Masons are arguably the least understood and most commonly maligned "secret" society in history, standard fare for conspiracy theorists and a seemingly inexhaustible stream of second-rate thrillers and B movies. But Brown covers this delicate topic with an even hand, treating this venerable group with a revealing intelligence and due respect. This makes for a riveting page-turner crafted around an impossibly diabolical antagonist, a cleverly fiendish tattooed hulk who calls himself "Mal'akh." Rapid-fire chapters, a nicely done link between ancient wisdom and the arcane emerging field of science known as "Noetics", the study of the unhidden power of collective human thought, lead through a series of non-stop cliffhangers to a well hidden twist at the finish line.
Where the heretical theme of "The Da Vinci Code" infuriated many Christian's, Brown tones down the rhetoric here, striking a fair balance between the secular and the spiritual. In fact, and perhaps as appeasement to some of those he may have offended, there is a deeply spiritual element to "Lost Symbol" that is thought provoking in topics ranging from the substance of the soul to the relevance and immortality of The Bible. With enough conspiracy to keep the black helicopter crowd happy - including actual black helicopters - and some unabashed but enjoyable similarity to the "National Treasure" films add up for a fast, entertaining, and educational read.
Of course, it is not perfect. While Langdon's "brains over brawn" is a refreshing change to the typical 44-Magnum-toting pop thriller protagonist, the thin, stereotyped characters and lame dialog are classic Dan Brown. The breakneck pace falters near the end, dragging on an overly long 60-plus pages after the true climax. And as Brown has his own history of playing a bit loose with some of his facts, there is little doubt that parts of "Lost Symbol" will frustrate the purists out there. But for the rest of us, this is a riveting page-turner and lots of fun - another Brown thrill fest where plot and context trump the deficiencies, including all the ingredients for another wild bestseller that most will love while infuriating others who, as with Da Vinci code before it, will love to hate it.
The Lost Symbol September 20, 2009
Terence K. Young (Peoria, IL. USA)
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
Initially I found The Lost Symbol to be an enjoyable, fast paced novel. I thought the subject was exciting. However toward the last third of the book I found it tedious...so much religious justification that it became a tired lecture on the commonality and unification of all religions. The discourse simply continued and continued...points driven in repeatedly until they became tired and repetitious. I believe the last third of the novel could be removed and it would be much more enjoyable. Frankly I am convinced that very few readers will seriously read the last third with any depth of understanding...they'll slide their eyes over those pages looking for the end of the novel. I liked The Lost Symbol...glad I read it...but found it pedantic and boring a good measure of the time.
 great book worth the wait. September 20, 2009
0 out of 6 found this review helpful
outstanding book. the reseach into the philosophical basis of freemasonry was epic. thank you dan brown.
Showing reviews 1576-1580 of 1778
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