The Da Vinci Code and Company
Richard Kew+

A few evenings ago I slipped down to Barnes & Noble, and spent an hour going through the religion shelves looking for books that are riding the rapidly rising Da Vinci Wave. I ended up with nine or ten volumes that I spread out on a table in the Starbucks section of the place and perused. I finally chose three or four to read and returned the other volumes to their shelves.

The last few days have found me going over these books in an attempt to get to the bottom of the Da Vinci Code phenomenon that has been riding high now for several years, and which is reaching something of a fever peak as the relase date for the move of the best-seller draws near. The hardback of The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown has now been on the New York Times Best Seller list for 159 weeks, and this week was its second week on the top of the paperback lists. There is now an illustrated Da Vinci Code, Da Vinci Code tour guides, and I expect all sorts of other ephemera will appear in coming months. This has become a big cultural "event."

Maybe it was fitting that I read The Da Vinci Code soon after it was published, on my way home from Minneapolis in July 2003, where I had been addressing a pre-convention gathering. (Needless to say, I have not be invited to speak at any gatherings in Columbus in June, and probably never will be again!). The book was commended to me be someone as a great read, and so it is. If you are looking for a page-turner, then this is it! However, from the supposed factoids on the first page, I was irritated by the way it played so fast and loose with facts, and was so badly researched.

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