Dan Brown

From TinWiki.org

Dan Brown

Dan Brown (born June 22, 1964) is an American author of thriller fiction. He is best known for writing the controversial 2003 best seller, The Da Vinci Code. Brown also wrote such novels as Digital Fortress, Angels and Demons, and Deception Point.

1 Early Life
2 Songwriter
3 Bestselling Author
4 "The Da Vinci Code" Movie
5 Works
6 Novel Descriptions
7 External Links
8 Relevant Discussion Threads

[edit]

Early Life

Dan Brown was born and raised in Exeter, New Hampshire. Brown is the oldest of three children. His mother Constance was a professional musician who played the organ at their local church. Brown's father, Richard G. Brown, was a prominent mathematics teacher. Richard Brown wrote textbooks and taught high school mathematics at Phillips Exeter Academy from 1962, until his retirement in 1997. The Phillips Exeter Academy was an exclusive boarding school, which required many new teachers to live on the campus for several years. This is the reason that Brown, and his siblings, were literally raised at the school. On campus, there was no television, and the social environment was mostly Christian orientated. Brown sang in the church choir, attended Christian Sunday school, and spent the summers at the church camp. Brown's schooling was in public schools in Exeter until the 9th grade, during which he enrolled in Phillips Exeter, as did his younger siblings, Valerie and Gregory, when it was their turn.

[edit]

Songwriter

After graduating from Phillips Exeter in 1982, Brown attended Amherst College, where he was a member of Psi Upsilon fraternity. It was with this fraternity that he played the squash and sang in the Amherst Glee Club. Brown graduated from Amherst with a double major in Spanish and English in 1986. He then fooled around with a musical career, creating effects with a synthesiser, and self-producing a children's cassette entitled "SynthAnimals." Brown then formed his own vanity record company called "Dalliance," and in 1990 self-published a CD entitled "Perspective," targeted to the adult market. In 1991, Brown moved to Hollywood to pursue a career as singer-songwriter and pianist. While in Los Angeles, he joined the National Academy of Songwriters, and participated in many of its events. It was there that he met Blythe Newlon, who was the Academy's Director of Artist Development. Though not officially part of her job, she took on the seemingly unusual task of helping to promote Brown's projects. For him, she wrote press releases, set up promotional events, and put him in contact with individuals who could be helpful to his career. Later, she and Brown married.

[edit]

Bestselling Author

In 1996, Brown quit teaching to become a full-time writer. "Digital Fortress" was published in 1998. Blythe did much of this book's promotion. She wrote press releases, booked Brown on talk shows, and set up press interviews. A few months later, Brown and his wife released "The Bald Book," another humour book. This book was officially credited to Brown's wife, though a representative of the publisher said that Brown primarily wrote it. The first three of Brown's novels had mediocre success. These three sold fewer than 10,000 copies in each of their first printings. His fourth novel, "The Da Vinci Code," became a best seller, going to the top of the New York Times Best Seller list during its first week of release in 2003. It is now credited with being one of the most popular books of all time, with 60.5 million copies sold worldwide as of 2006. The success of "The Da Vinci Code," has helped push sales of Brown's earlier books. In 2004, all four of his novels were on the New York Times list in the same week, and in 2005, he made Time magazine's list of the 100 most influential people of the year. Forbes magazine placed Brown at #12 on their 2005 "Celebrity 100" list, and estimated his annual income at $76.5 million (USD). The Times estimated his income from "The Da Vinci Code" sales as $250 million. Brown has always been interested in cryptography, keys, and codes. These are a recurring theme in his stories. Currently, his novels have been translated into more than 40 languages.

[edit]

"The Da Vinci Code" Movie

In 2006, Columbia Pictures released Brown’s novel “The Da Vinci Code” as a film, with director Ron Howard. This film stars Tom Hanks as Robert Langdon, Audrey Tautou as Sophie Neveu and Sir Ian McKellen as Leigh Teabing. It is considered one of the most anticipated films of 2006, and was used to launch the Cannes Film Festival on May 17. Brown was listed as one of the executive producers of the film. Brown also created additional codes for the motion picture. One of his songs, "Phiano," which Brown wrote and performed, was listed as part of the film's soundtrack.

[edit]

Works

CDs

- "SynthAnimals"

- "Perspective"

- "Dan Brown"

- "Angels and Demons"

- "Musica Animalia"

Humour Writing

- "187 Men to Avoid: A Survival Guide for the Romantically Frustrated Woman"

- "The Bald Book"

Novels

- "Digital Fortress"

- "Angels and Demons"

- "Deception Point"

- "The Da Vinci Code"

Movies

- "The Da Vinci Code"

[edit]

Novel Descriptions

Digital Fortress

- Susan Fletcher, a brilliant mathematician and head of the National Security Agency's cryptography division, finds herself faced with an unbreakable code resistant to brute-force attacks by the NSA's 3 million processor supercomputer. Japanese cryptographer Ensei Tankado, a sacked employee of the NSA, who is displeased with the agency’s intrusion into people’s privacy, writes the code. Tankado auctions the algorithm on his website, threatening that his accomplice, "NDakota", will release the algorithm for free if he dies. Tankado is found dead in Seville, Spain. Fletcher, along with her fiancé, David Becker, a skilled linguist with eidetic memory, must find a solution to stop the spread of the code.

Angels and Demons

- Angels and Demons follows Harvard symbolist Robert Langdon, as he tries to stop what seems to be the Illuminati, a legendary secret society, from destroying the Vatican City with the newly discovered power of antimatter.

Deception Point

- Deception Point opens with NASA personnel making a startling discovery. An ancient meteorite is found buried within an Arctic glacier. Samples taken from this meteorite show that there are fossils of some Isopod-like life forms inside it. Could this discovery prove that we are not alone in the universe? To answer that question, several civilian scientists are dispatched to the site in order to investigate the origin of the fossils and verify NASA's findings. Before any official announcement can be made, however, one of the scientists dies under mysterious circumstances. The remaining scientists quickly realise that all is not what it appears to be as they struggle to separate truth from deceit. They soon realise that the meteorite was indigenous (the "alien bugs" are in fact fossils of terrestrial giant isopods) and was inserted into the glacier by drilling beneath the frozen sea.

The Da Vinci Code

- The book concerns the attempts of Robert Langdon, Professor of Religious Symbology at Harvard University, to solve the murder of renowned curator Jacques Sauniere of the Louvre Museum in Paris. The title of the novel refers, among other things, to the fact that Saunière's body is found in the Denon Wing of the Louvre naked and posed like Leonardo da Vinci's famous drawing, the Vitruvian Man, with a cryptic message written beside his body and a Pentagram drawn on his stomach in his own blood. The interpretation of hidden messages inside Leonardo's famous works, including the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, figure prominently in the solution to the mystery.

[edit]