The Printed Page

See those little guys to the left. Those are book lemmings and yep I’m one of them. There was a bit of chatter today when I listed Dan Brown’s newest Robert Langdon adventure, The Lost Symbol, as part of my Mailbox Monday post. Yes I joined the book lemmings and pre-ordered from Amazon as soon as they released the eBook version for $9.99.

Now I wasn’t taken with The Da Vinci Code the first time I picked it up. I put it in the DNF pile with no intention of reading it. With lots of encouragement from other readers I picked it up again. The second go ’round was a success. I read Angels and Demons after reading The Da Vinci Code and enjoyed it start to finish. And that brings me to The Lost Symbol. I debated about spending the 10 bucks to buy The Lost Symbol without waiting for those harsh Amazon readers to give it their ratings, raves and rants. Call it a leap of (lemming) faith.

So far at Amazon it’s rated a solid 3 stars which puts it dead in the middle of the road for ‘yes buy it’ or ‘don’t waste your money’. Well I was already committed so there was no going back. I wasn’t even going to read it this soon. I was intending to save it for my upcoming vacation as we’ll be spending hours trapped in an airplane. But with today’s chatter I decided to dive in.

Yes Mr. Brown has been accused of writing for the masses. They say he writes ‘formula’ stories. So what? So do lots of other authors. Authors whose names and books are well known throughout the reading world and beyond. And here’s the thing ~ writing formula stories that appeal to the masses sells books. And yes I read lots of books from those authors and thoroughly enjoy them. Here’s why ~ I want to be entertained and they do a fine job of doing just that.

So having read just 7% (Kindle eBook) or approximately 37 pages I’m enjoying The Lost Symbol. It’s exactly what I expected and so far I’m more than happy with what I’ve read. It’s right on track for the action to start and mystery to take hold. Robert (and I) have gotten to the point where things aren’t going quite the way he thought they would be. Hmmm… giving that last minute speech to an empty auditorium leads me to stop writing this post, pop the corn and pick up The Lost Symbol so that I can rejoin Robert on his latest adventure.