The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. The author is a New Hampshire resident so it was not a surprise when he became the writer du jour. Practically everyone was reading his book. Even my advisor gave a hearty endorsement of the book with no prompting at all. I was skeptical--after all, I am willing to read pretty much anything, but that doesn't mean that I will like it. The Da Vinci Code is what I would call a puzzle thriller. Brown's work is nowhere in the same league as Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum though--no cerebral philosophizing as far as I could see--it was written like a bestseller destined to be transferred to the pallid, one-dimensional Hollywood movie screen. Now don't get me wrong, I readily admit that this is a fun read, but there isn't too much if you look past the surface. It got tiring real quick whenever the main character, a Harvard prof, launched into a lecture of the "sacred feminine." It made me wonder if a gang of feminists and the PC police got a hold of the author and brainwashed him. But of course, if you're planning to read the novel, don't let me stop you. I'm just still annoyed that in one scene, the prof of symbology convinced a biology student through his powers of rhetoric that all proportions in nature added up to the number phi. I would have tried looking that up before even considering taking his blabbering for fact.
Other recently finished books: Truth or Dare by Jayne Ann Krentz, which is also another thriller but of a different sort. It never purports to be as high-minded like The Da Vinci Code so it doesn't fall flat on its face in the expectations department. The Krentz novel is actually a sequel to another book called Light in Shadow and basically the premise is the same--some people from the main characters' murky pasts are stalking them. The plot is pretty flimsy, but that's to be expected when the author's forte is dialogue.
How to Write a Damn Good Mystery by James N. Frey is a mix of useful points, pure personal drivel, and boring-ness. The boring-ness mostly consisted of example parts where he actually plots out a mystery novel for you. This was annoying because I have the notion that one shouldn't force someone to write a certain way. Besides, I hated the plot idea he picked out. But at least there are some good general guidelines on how to plan a mystery or any other novel for that matter.
In the midst of reading: I'm still plodding through Stephenson's Quicksilver. Also started Nick Lane's Oxygen which is more like an essay in 300 pages on how the presence of oxygen on earth influenced evolution (thankfully, no extensive rehash of undergrad o-chem so far).
