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|  | Author: Dan Brown
Publisher: Doubleday Books
List Price: $29.95
Buy New: $10.98
as of 11/23/2009 14:11 CST details
You Save: $18.97 (63%)
New (141) Used (97) Collectible (25) from $10.50
Seller: big_river_books
Rating:  1770 reviews
Sales Rank: 4
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: This is a Book Club Edition. We ship daily Monday-Friday. Delivery Confirmation included on all domestic orders.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1601-1605 of 1770
 Torture in print form September 19, 2009
Miss Marin
8 out of 11 found this review helpful
I was looking forward to great read.What i got was a lot of historical mishmash and the actions of people who were supposedly highly intelligent. Oh, My! What bumbling idiots. And the whole book is about 200 pages too long with all the Mumbo Jumbo and mystical meanderings. Don't wast your time with this one. The movie will probably be better and at least, you can watch it without having to wade throough the mire of the book. Gag.
 I was yelling at the book on CD recording!! September 19, 2009
Boston Books on Taper
6 out of 9 found this review helpful
I believe that all books should be "read" first on tape before they are published so the editors can pick up on illogical or just stupid writing! The book on CD is very short, 5 CD's.
Amazing how Langdon flies to Washington, prepares for a big speach, yet isn't greeted by anyone before he enters into the lecture hall?
And, these supposed high tech, secure labs, being accessed with a swipe card and PIN? No biometric or retinal scan? Come on. Who could have a conversation with Robert Langdon, he's always spouting some long diatribe.
The best part was the character of Peter Simon. He was kidnapped, mutilated, put in sensory deprivation, yet he requires no doctor and can take the time to explain to Peter the meaning of it all? There is one part where the book reads " Peter put his hand on Langdon's shoulder", what, did he put the bloody stump on his shoulder? When Peters sister flies out to the house where the security company supposedly finds him in "bad shape", why don't they notice there is no ambulance outside?
I could go on. I ended up yelling at the end of Angels and Demon's too. Unbelievable stuff when you "hear" it.
 When a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down, medicine go down.... September 19, 2009
N. Felton
6 out of 12 found this review helpful
I just finished reading Dan Browns latest novel, and I couldn't put it down. On the surface, this book is about Robert Langdon (as we know him from 'the Da Vinci Code'), somehow getting involved with the Freemasons in a frantic race spanning a time period of 12 hours, chasing all over Washington DC at night, while deciphering ancient symbols and codes,solving mysterious riddles, and fighting the ultimate villain, a mortal guy with a brilliant but sick brain turned monster. The plot is somewhat similar to the `Da Vinci Code'
Granted, what we learn here about Freemasonry is fascinating. Ultimately though, this story is about ancient philosophies and forgotten messages and wisdoms that bite us in the nose every day where ever we look, and the regrettable fact that most people are not open minded enough these days to be able to perceive them. He confronts us with the common but arrogant assumption that the 21st century and its technology and achievements is mankind at its peak. We are encouraged to consider the idea that ancient philosophies and cultures might have been well ahead of modern knowledge, and that cutting edge science is just about to catch up with what in essence has already been known millenniums ago.
This resonates with me. I was lucky enough to have a teacher in high school who introduced us to Einstein's special theory of relativity, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, all rounded up with a nice background in philosophy. I have a masters degree in science, but philosophies and religions from all over the world kept fascinating me until today.
So Dan Browns idea is simple: take all this heavy food for thought and wrap a nice, fast paced suspense thriller around it that people can easily enjoy and dismiss as pure entertainment. The author himself is pulling his own leg a little when putting the reader in Langdon's shoes, the skeptical scientist: `Ironically this same code had been a plot twist in a mediocre thriller Langdon had read years ago'.
This book has to be read between the lines if you want to understand what the author wants to get across. Here is what he really wants folks to think about: Quote "From the crusades, to the Inquisition, to American politics - the name Jesus had been hijacked as an ally in all kinds of power struggles. Since the beginning of time, the ignorant had always screamed the loudest, herding the unsuspecting masses and forcing them to do their bidding. They defended their worldly desires by citing Scripture they did not understand. They celebrated their intolerance as proof of their convictions. Now, after all these years, mankind had finally managed to utterly erode everything that had once been so beautiful about Jesus".
And I can see why it Dan Brown six years to finish this novel, he poured an enormous amount of research into this book. While the plot is fiction, the facts for the most part are not. I couldn't help but google along on my computer as I read, and many times the search results left me flabbergasted.
Read this book open minded, as the wisdom within is hidden in a big spoonful of sugar. Not many of us like bitter medicine straight up after all ;-)
The Lost Lunatic September 19, 2009
Bookster
12 out of 17 found this review helpful
I've read The Da Vinci code. It's brilliant, amazing plot and a great ending. But this book goes from "ok" to "really bad" in no time and is tedious to flip through. As a Dan Brown fan, I'd say this book is "same old candy in a new wrapper" but leaves a very bitter taste in the mouth. Sad. I knew it would be nearly impossible to top Da Vinci code, but this turned out to be the worst of his books.
# Spoilers Ahead #
The lost symbol is about a lunatic's dream to become god. This lunatic is really wealthy, has a loving family, all the comforts you could imagine. But he's a ... lunatic.
Lunatic loses his mind thanks to drugs, watches a documentary on freemasons, gets every mm of his body tattoed, becomes invincible thanks to tons of steroids which actually seem to make him superhuman, but wait, there's more... he wants to be god. So lunatic decides to go after his family to get hold of the legendary pyramid, kills people, cuts hands of people, oh and kills birds, rats, rodents and performs all sorts of evil sacrifices. In the middle of all this melee, a group of people must protect the lost symbol, no wait.. it's the lost word... no, no, the lost mind, the lost language, oh wait.. it's actually a book = The Bible !!! You got that right ! And the CIA has a job too... To prevent the lunatic from uploading a video to YouTube or whatever.
Lunatic finally gets the pyramid and tells dad to kill him with a $1.6 million knife.. Alas, knife breaks into two but lunatic has his wish fulfilled anyways.
So you're thinking, what's the moral of the story..... Easy, Say No To Drugs. Don't get me wrong, this is a page turner... the first few hundred pages have exciting moments but as the story nears the end it becomes a drag.... and the biggest letdown is the secret that was being protected for which so many people had to die. Turns out we can channel our mind to reach unimaginable potentials... and other philosophical mumbo jumbo. That's it, that's the secret. THE SECRET, was a much better book than this. It actually tells you how to channel your mind properly.
But this book is a waste of time. The climax made me want to tear apart my hair, but it's too precious a thing to lose. Maybe if the secret was a hair growing cream, wouldn't that be something?
 Mysticism and symbolism aside, feasiblity limited September 19, 2009
Shelly L. Rollins (Snohomish, WA)
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
I enjoyed this book for the most part, but there were actions throughout this book that made me stop and think, couldn't this have been written a BIT more credible? Here Im not even addressing the mysticism or symbolic reference, I'm addressing the basic plot.
Overall, I enjoyed this book, the pace was fast and the story line interesting. However, that said, I felt frustrated by several situations where the feasibility of what the Author wanted me to buy into. From the begining I questioned Brown, allowing our "brilliant professor Langdon" to be so gullible in the first place and this seemed to a common thread throughout the storyline.
Protecting our "National Security" with a staff conisisted of what, a handfull of CIA operatives? Buzzing to and fro to cover all the bases throughout the plot? I know there have been federal cutbacks, but not very realistic. Come on.
And Ms. Solomons labratory being "in the dark" so to speak? Here again, I believe the author should have been more "illuminated" in the difference between feasibility and creative license.
In spite of all the symbolic elements common throughout Brown's book, I really felt "dumned down" by the author. That said, it was entertaining overall, although as others stated the ending left me unsatiated after such a gruelling quest.
Showing reviews 1601-1605 of 1770
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