Image showing three of the best books set in Spain: Retreat to the Spanish Sun, Sleeping Arrangements and Origin

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Reading lists

9 of the best books set in Spain

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11 of the best books set in France

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9 beach reads set in Italy

Many writers through history have relied on unusual rituals to get the job done.

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Features

The most unusual writing rituals of famous authors

(Robert Langdon Book 3)

The Lost Symbol

Dan Brown is the bestselling author of Digital Fortress, Deception Point, Angels and Demons, The Da Vinci Code, The Lost Symbol, Inferno, Origin and The Secret of Secrets. Three of his Robert Langdon novels have been adapted for the screen by Ron Howard, starring Tom Hanks. They have all been international blockbusters. 
 
Dan Brown is a graduate of Amherst College and Phillips Exeter Academy, where he has taught English and Creative Writing. He lives in New England.

Robert Langdon returns in Dan Brown's brilliant new thriller, THE SECRET OF SECRETS, available for pre-order now. 
 
The bestselling continuation of global phenomenon THE DA VINCI CODE, featuring symbologist Robert Langdon. 
 
The Capitol Building, Washington DC: Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon believes he is here to give a lecture. He is wrong. Within minutes of his arrival, a shocking object is discovered. It is a gruesome invitation into an ancient world of hidden wisdom. 
 
When Langdon's mentor, Peter Solomon - prominent mason and philanthropist - is kidnapped, Langdon realizes that his only hope of saving his friend's life is to accept this mysterious summons. 
 
It is to take him on a breathless chase through Washington's dark history. All that was familiar is changed into a shadowy, mythical world in which Masonic secrets and never-before-seen revelations seem to be leading him to a single impossible and inconceivable truth...

(Robert Langdon Book 2)

The Da Vinci Code

Robert Langdon returns in Dan Brown's brilliant new thriller, THE SECRET OF SECRETS, available for pre-order now. 
 
Discover the bestselling thriller of all time from global phenomenon Dan Brown. 
 
Harvard professor Robert Langdon receives an urgent late-night phone call while on business in Paris: the elderly curator of the Louvre has been brutally murdered inside the museum. Alongside the body, police have found a series of baffling codes. 
 
As Langdon and a gifted French cryptologist, Sophie Neveu, begin to sort through the bizarre riddles, they are stunned to find a trail that leads to the works of Leonardo Da Vinci - and suggests the answer to a mystery that stretches deep into the vault of history. 
 
Unless Langdon and Neveu can decipher the labyrinthine code and quickly assemble the pieces of the puzzle, a stunning historical truth will be lost forever...

Deception Point

When a new NASA satellite detects evidence of an astonishingly rare object buried deep in the Arctic ice, the floundering space agency proclaims a much-needed victory...a victory that has profound implications for U.S. space policy and the impending presidential election. 
 
With the Oval Office in the balance, the President dispatches White House Intelligence analyst Rachel Sexton to the Arctic to verify the authenticity of the find. Accompanied by a team of experts, including the charismatic academic Michael Tolland, Rachel uncovers the unthinkable - evidence of scientific trickery - a bold deception that threatens to plunge the world into controversy... 
 
Dan Brown's brilliant new thriller, THE SECRET OF SECRETS, featuring the return of symbologist Robert Langdon, is available for pre-order now.

Digital Fortress

When the National Security Agency's invincible code-breaking machine encounters a mysterious code it cannot break, the agency calls in its head cryptographer, Susan Fletcher, a brilliant, beautiful mathematician. What she uncovers sends shock waves through the corridors of power. The NSA is being held hostage - not by guns or bombs, but by a code so complex that if released would cripple U.S. intelligence. 
 
Caught in an accelerating tempest of secrecy and lies, Fletcher battles to save the agency she believes in. Betrayed on all sides, she finds herself fighting not only for her country but for her life, and in the end, for the life of the man she loves... 
 
Dan Brown's brilliant new thriller, THE SECRET OF SECRETS, featuring the return of symbologist Robert Langdon, is available for pre-order now.

The prequel to the global phenomenon The Da Vinci Code

Angels And Demons

(Robert Langdon Book 1)

Robert Langdon returns in Dan Brown's brilliant new thriller, THE SECRET OF SECRETS, available for pre-order now. 
 
Discover the heart-racing bestseller that first introduced the world to symbologist Robert Langdon. 
 
CERN Institute, Switzerland: a world-renowned scientist is found brutally murdered with a mysterious symbol seared onto his chest. 
 
The Vatican, Rome: the College of Cardinals assembles for conclave to elect a new pope. Somewhere beneath them, an unstoppable bomb of terrifying power relentlessly counts down to oblivion. 
 
In a breathtaking race against time, Harvard professor Robert Langdon must decipher a labyrinthine trail of ancient symbols if he is to defeat those responsible - the Illuminati, a secret brotherhood presumed extinct for nearly four hundred years, reborn to continue their deadly vendetta against their most hated enemy, the Catholic Church.

(Robert Langdon Book 4)

Inferno

Robert Langdon returns in Dan Brown's brilliant new thriller, THE SECRET OF SECRETS, available for pre-order now. 
 
The astonishing number 1 global bestseller, featuring symbologist Robert Langdon. 
 
Florence: Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon awakes in a hospital bed with no recollection of where he is or how he got there. Nor can he explain the origin of the macabre object that is found hidden in his belongings. 
 
A threat to his life will propel him and a young doctor, Sienna Brooks, into a breakneck chase across the city. Only Langdon’s knowledge of the hidden passageways and ancient secrets that lie behind its historic facade can save them from the clutches of their unknown pursuers. 
 
With only a few lines from Dante’s Inferno to guide them, they must decipher a sequence of codes buried deep within some of the Renaissance’s most celebrated artworks to find the answers to a puzzle which may, or may not, help them save the world from a terrifying threat…

Dan Brown

(Robert Langdon Book 6)

Accompanying celebrated academic, Katherine Solomon, to a lecture she’s been invited to give in Prague, Robert Langdon’s world spirals out of control when she disappears without trace from their hotel room. Far from home and well out of his comfort zone, Langdon must pit his wits against forces unknown to recover the woman he loves. 
 
But Prague is an old and dangerous city, steeped in folklore and mystery. For over two thousand years, the tides of history have washed back and forth over it, leaving behind echoes of everything that has gone before. Little can Langdon know that he is being stalked by a spectre from that dark past. He must use all of his arcane knowledge to decipher the world around him before he too is consumed by the rings of treachery and deception that have swallowed Katherine. 
 
Against a backdrop of vast castles, towering churches, graveyards buried twelve deep and labyrinthine underground passages, Langdon must navigate a shadow city hiding in plain sight, a city which has successfully kept its secrets for centuries and will not readily deliver them. This is a battlefield unlike any he has previously experienced, one on which he must fight not for his only life, but for the future of humanity itself. 
 
The Secret Of Secrets is Dan Brown’s first novel for over eight years and sees the stunning return of Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon, this time pitting his wits against a conspiracy which will test even his considerable brainpower and take him to the edge of losing all that he holds dear…

Dan Brown

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9 of the best books set in Spain

11 of the best books set in France

9 beach reads set in Italy

The most unusual writing rituals of famous authors

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