"The Da Vinci Code" by Dan Brown - Review

Title: The Da Vinci Code
Author: Dan Brown
First Published: 2003
Publisher: Anchor
Pages: 490
Genere: Thriller
Format/Source: Paperback - Lent from my dad

"Men go to far greater lengths to avoid what they fear than to obtain what they desire."
- Leigh Teabing 

After holding a lecture in Paris, Robert Langdon and the curator of the Louvre have arranged to meet for drinks. Jaques Sauniére never shows up for this appointment, but, as Langdon finds out when french agents wake him and bring him to the Louvre, Sauniére has a good excuse: He has been murdered. While dying, he abviously drew a pentagramm on his belly and, in addition to a cryptic message he also wrote Langdon's name on the floor, which led the agents to believe Langdon is the murderer.

Langdon manages to flee with cryptologist and granddaughter of the deceased and now tries to decrypt the message left by the curator, who, as a member of the secret society of the Priory de Sion, tried to lead his granddaughter to an ancient truth in his final minutes of life, a truth that otherwise would be lost forever. But the French police aren't the only ones chasing those two...

"Neverwhere" by Neil Gaiman - review

Title: Neverwhere
Author: Neil Gaiman
First Published: 1996
Publisher: Harper Torch Fiction
Pages: 383
Genere: Fantasy/Adventure
Format/Source: Paperback - Christmas Gift

"Richard had noticed that events were cowards: they didn't occur singly, but instead they would run in packs and leap out at him all at once."

It all starts when Londoner Richard Mayhew helps a mysterious girl he finds injured pavement and takes her home. Twentyfour hours later the girl has left and he finds that his life was practically erased: His desk at his work was put away, his apartment is for rent and his fiancée doesn't recognise him. Even weirder, nobody even notices him anymore. The only alternative he sees is to look for the girl he found on the sidewalk and so he tumbles into London Below - a strange world of mysterious creatures, baronies and a little magic. Where there is an earl in Earl's Court (an London Underground car) and black friars at Blackfriars. The girl Richard helped turns out to be, in fact, a lady, the lady Door.

As Richard finds out, the Lady's family has been murdered not long ago and she is pursued by the two most feared cutthroats in London Below - Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar. To find out why her family was killed, Door sets out to find the angel Islington - together with the strange, cunning and deceiving Marquis de Carabas who still owed Door a favour; the bodyguard Hunter, a fierce hunter whose aspiration it is to kill the Great Beast of London; and the upworlder Richard who has no idea what he got himself into and who just wants his life back.

"The Alchemist" by Paul Coelho - Review

Title: The Alchemist
Author: Paul Coelho
First Published: 1988
Original Language: Portugese

Publisher: Harper San Francisco
Pages: 197 (including bookclub guide, interview etc.)   
Genere: Adventure/Bildungsroman

"The secret is here in the present. If you pay attention to the present, you can improve upon it. And, if you improve on the present, what comes later will also be better." - The Seer

The Andalusian sheperd boy Satiago dreams of a treasure that lies under the great pyramids. A man who claims to be the king of Salomon gives him two stones that should tell his faith and advises him to follow his personal legend, his destiny. The next day the boy sells all his sheep and sets out from Spain to Egypt to find his treasure. On his way he encounters an Englishman, his true love, a few thieves and an alchemist who teaches him that everything on this world is the same and everyhing speaks one language, the "language of the world".

"Angels and Demons" by Dan Brown - Review

Title: Angels and Demons
Author: Dan Brown
First Published: 2000
Publisher: Corgi Books
Pages: 620 
Genere: Suspense Thriller
Source: Borrowed (Library)

"Science and religion are not at odds. Science is simply too young to understand." - Camerlengo Patrick McKenna

Harvard Symbologist Robert Langdon is woken at night to help investigate the death of physicist Leonardo Vetra who was cruelly murdered and branded with a symbol of an ancient brotherhood - The Illuminati. Initially deemed extinguished, this brotherhood stole a canister of antimatter, an undetectable explosive which is now hidden somewhere in the Vatican, the headquarter of the brotherhood's oldest enemy.

At the same time, as the catholic church prepares for the election of a new pope, the four top candidates are abducted with the message that every hour one of these cardinals will be publicly murdered until, after the last one has been killed, the antimatter will destroy the catholic church for good.

Langdon, joined by Vetra's daughter, the beautiful scientist Vittoria, chases through Rome on a trail layed by the Illuminati themselves out 400 year before in an attemt to saved the cardinals and find the antimatter before it is too late.

"Jacob's Folly" by Rebecca Miller - Review

Beforehand: I read this book about a while ago so my memory is starting to get a little blurry about it. I'll do my best but I wouldn't rely 100% on this.

Title: Jacob's Folly
Author: Rebecca Miller
First Published: 2013
Publisher: Canongate Books
Pages: 384
Genere: Historical/General Fiction

After the Jewish peddler Jacob Cerf dies in 18th-Century Paris he is mysteriously reincarnated in 21st-Century Long Island - as a fly. Even more mysterious: He can suddenly read thoughts. He starts following Masha, a young orthodox jewish woman he fell in love with after seeing her in a hospital and father as well as volunteer fireman Leslie Senzatimore.

As Jacob finds out more about their life he also finds that he can't only read their thoughts but also influence them - and so he forms a plan to bring down Leslie and help Masha accomplish her biggest dream.