Da Vinci Code

On a rainy day in Paris last week, 50-year-old Linda Ackerman headed to the Louvre for a bit of detective work. Her checklist included the "Mona Lisa," a painting that she had seen before -- but not this way, not with new eyes on the "Cracking the Da Vinci Code at the Louvre" tour. Sure enough, just as author Dan Brown had described in his novel, "The Da Vinci Code," Ackerman noticed for the first time that the woman in the Renaissance masterpiece looked androgynous.

China's official Catholic Church urged its followers to boycott "The Da Vinci Code" on Thursday. The city council in the Philippine capital banned the movie. The Indian censor board cleared the movie without any cuts, but required a disclaimer and insisted that it be shown to adults only. The film, based on the bestselling Dan Brown novel, wasn't expected to generate a wide backlash in Asia, where Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam are the dominant faiths.

"The Da Vinci Code" is not just a mega-selling book, not just a crowd-drawing movie, it's also, at $21.95, an "illustrated screenplay" replete with storyboards, stills from the movie, musings by author Dan Brown and the movie's principals and boxes of production trivia (such as " 'The Da Vinci Code' had 25 revisions over six months" and "Twenty-four rue Haxo doesn't actually exist in Paris.") At the heart of the "official making-of-the-movie book," though, is Akiva Goldsman's script.

WELL before Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" was published, Kathleen McGowan, author of "The Expected One," quit a lucrative job as a marketing rep for Disney, maxed out her credit cards, cashed in her 401k and left her children for weeks at a time, all because she believed she had been chosen to tell the "real" story of Mary Magdalene: that the woman known as a reformed prostitute was actually the wife of Jesus and a spiritual leader in her own right.

The fictional Robert Langdon cracked the equally fictional "Da Vinci Code" by discovering clues hidden within the "Mona Lisa. " But it's a French scientist and art researcher, Pascal Cotte, who has uncovered the real secrets of one of the world's most famous portraits. His amazing work is revealed in a walk through “ Da Vinci - The Genius ,” an exhibition featured at the Venetian resort in Las Vegas . In a darkened gallery, panels reveal Cotte's discoveries about the masterpiece, painted not on canvas but on a plank of poplar.

Actor-producer-director Tom Hanks has purchased the contemporary Pacific Palisades home of veteran producers Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall, according to area real estate agents. The sales price was listed at slightly more than $26 million at Blockshopper.com, a news and market data service. Property records show that the 14,513-square-foot house, built in 1996, has four bedrooms and five bathrooms. Hanks did not respond to requests for comment. Hanks, 53, won Oscars for his work in "Forrest Gump" (1994)

Publishers have cast their nets wide to benefit from the hype surrounding the movie version of "The Da Vinci Code," publishing more than 50 works of fiction and nonfiction in the last five months alone. Some have been cooked up to capitalize on the craze; others are first-rate works blessed by the best of all coincidences: * "The Da Vinci Notebooks," edited by Emma Dickens (Arcade) Here's Leonardo, raw and unmediated, on art, color, anatomy, astronomy and much more.

"DRACULA'S GUEST" is a rare example of Bram Stoker's editorial restraint. Usually, his work was Grub Street quality: He dashed off 13 novels while managing London's Lyceum Theatre company. But Stoker had a different attitude when he wrote the novel he first called "The Un-Dead." It was special. He lavished six years on getting the lore and suspense just right; when it was published in 1897, "Dracula" became the Victorian era's version of "The Da Vinci Code."

New Hampshire author Dan Brown's bestselling thriller, "The Da Vinci Code," has boosted the profile of the relatively unknown writer -- and it's brought him his first literary challenge. Author Lewis Perdue says that Brown's story, which explores codes hidden in Leonardo Da Vinci's artwork and a closely guarded secret involving the Roman Catholic Church, has similarities to Perdue's "Daughter of God," published in 2000. Last week, Perdue sent a letter to Doubleday, Brown's publisher.