Dan Brown

At 60 years old, Dan Brown has this physical status:

Daniel Gerhard Brown (born June 22, 1964) is an American author best known for his thriller books, including the Robert Langdon books Angels & Demons (2000), The Da Vinci Code (2003), The Lost Symbol (2005), Inferno (2013), and Origin (2017).

His books are treasure hunts that usually take place over a 24-hour span.

They have revolving topics of cryptography, art, and conspiracy theories.

His books have been translated into 57 languages and have sold over 200 million copies as of 2012.

Angels & Demons, The Da Vinci Code, and Inferno, three of them, have been turned into films. The Robert Langdon books are deeply involved with Christian themes and historical fact, and have sparked controversy as a result.

Brown claims that his books are not anti-Christian, although he is on a "constant spiritual journey" himself.

His book, The Da Vinci Code, is simply "an amusing story that promotes spiritual dialogue and debate," he says, and that it can be used "as a positive catalyst for reflection and inquiry of our faith."

Early life

Daniel Gerhard Brown was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, on June 22, 1964. Valerie (born 1968) and Gregory (born 1974) are twins. Brown did not attend Exeter's public schools until the ninth grade. He grew up on Phillips Exeter Academy, where his father, Richard G. Brown, taught mathematics and wrote textbooks from 1968 to 1997. Constance (née Gerhardt) Gerhardt's mother, a church organist and a student of sacred music, studied in the United States. In a 2009 interview, Brown was raised an Episcopalian and outlined his religious transition:

Brown replied: "When asked in a similar interview about his then-current religious convictions, he replied: no.

Brown's fascination with mysteries and mysteries arose as a child, where codes and ciphers were the linchpin tying together the mathematics, music, and languages in which his parents lived. The young Brown spent hours on anagram and crossword puzzles, and he and his siblings were involved in intricate treasure hunts planned by their father on birthdays and holidays. Brown and his siblings did not find gifts under the tree, for example, but they did find the gifts in their house and even around town. Brown's relationship with his father inspired that of Sophie Neveu and Jacques Saunière in The Da Vinci Code, and Chapter 23 of his book was inspired by one of his childhood treasure hunts.

Brown, who graduated from Phillips Exeter, attended Amherst College, where he was a member of Psi Upsilon fraternity. He played squash, performed in the Amherst Glee Club, and was a visiting novelist Alan Lelchuk's writing student. Brown studied abroad in Seville, Spain, where he was enrolled in an art history course at the University of Seville. Brown graduated from Amherst in 1986.

Personal life

The New Hampshire Charitable Foundation was supported by Brown and his partner, Blythe Newlon.

Brown and his wife divorced rashly during their marriage in 2019, despite the fact that the financial agreement remains to be reached due to Brown's suspected infidelities in the second half. The couple decided to resolve the case in December 2021.

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Career

Brown, a graduate of Amherst, began practicing music, designing sounds with a synthesizer, and self-producing a children's cassette entitled SynthAnimals, which featured a range of songs including "Happy Frogs" and "Suzuki Elephants." Gary Glitter has been compared to Gary Glitter's music. He later founded Dalliance and released Perspective, a 1990-bound CD that was also limited to the adult market, which sold a few hundred copies. In 1991, he moved to Hollywood to pursue a life as a singer-songwriter and pianist. He taught classes at Beverly Hills Preparatory School to support himself.

He has also joined the National Academy of Songwriters and appeared in several of the National Academy's activities. It was there that he met Blythe Newlon, the academy's Director of Artist Development, while on vacation. Despite the fact that it wasn't mandated part of her career, she took on the seemingly impossible challenge of supporting Brown's initiatives; she wrote press releases, arranged promotional events, and put him in touch with people who might be able to assist him in his career. Brown and Brown also developed a personal relationship, though it was not known to all of their associates until 1993, when Brown returned to New Hampshire and announced that Newlon would accompany him. They married in 1997 at Pea Porridge Pond, near Conway, New Hampshire. Angels & Demons was Brown's first CD in 1994. Its artwork was the same ambigram by artist John Langdon that he later used for the novel Angels & Demons. The liner credited his wife for her continued service, coproducer, second engineer, significant other, and therapist. "Here in These Fields" and "All I Believe" were among the CD's highlights.

In 1993, Brown and his partner, Blythe, moved to Rye, New Hampshire. Brown taught English at his alma mater Phillips Exeter, Exeter, and the 8th graders at Lincoln Akerman School, a small school for K–8th grade, at Hampton Falls, taught Spanish to 6th, 7th, and 8th graders.

Brown has written a book titled Wild Symphony, which is supplemented by a book of the same name. Susan Batori, a Hungarian artist, illustrates the book, while the graphics display the corresponding soundtrack in a accompanying book. The music was performed by the Zagreb Festival Orchestra and will be performed by the Portsmouth Symphony Orchestra in 2020 at its world premiere. It was announced on March 30, 2022, that Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Weed Road Pictures would make Wild Symphony an animated musical feature film in the vein of Walt Disney's Fantasia, with Brown directing and performing, and Akiva Goldsman producing.

Brown read Sidney Sheldon's book The Doomsday Conspiracy while on vacation in Tahiti in 1993 and was inspired to write thrillers.

He began working on Digital Fortress, a large portion of which was located in Seville, where he had studied in 1985. 187 Men to Avoid: A Survival Guide for the Romantically Insecure Woman was also co-written by his husband under the pseudonym "Danielle Brown." "Danielle Brown now lives in New England: teaching school, writing books, and avoiding men," the book's author describes. Brown is responsible for the copyright to the book.

Brown left teaching to become a full-time writer in 1996. In 1998, Digital Fortress was launched. Blythe's wife was instrumental in the book's success, writing press releases, booking Brown on talk shows, and scheduling press interviews. Brown and his wife published The Bald Book, another humor book a few months back. It was officially attributed to his wife, but a Brown spokesperson confirmed that it was mostly written by Brown. Since being published in 2000 and 2001 respectively, Brown wrote Angels & Demons and Deception Point, the former of which was the first to feature Harvard symbology expert Robert Langdon. Brown's first three books were met with little success, with fewer than 10,000 copies in each of their first printings. During the first week of publication in 2003, Da Vinci Code, his fourth book, became a hit, making it to the top of the New York Times Best Seller list. It's one of the oldest books of all time, with 81 million copies sold worldwide as of 2009. Brown's earlier books' success has boosted book sales.

In 2004, all four of his books were on the New York Times bestseller list in the same week, and, in 2005, he was voted on Time magazine's list of the 100 Most Influential People of the Year. Brown came in No. 8 in Forbes magazine, placing him at No. 1 in the country. On their 2005 "Celebrity 100" list, 12 people were listed, with an estimated annual income of US$76.5 million. According to the essay that was published in The Times, Brown's estimated net worth after Da Vinci Code sales is $250 million. On September 15, 2009, Brown's third book starring Robert Langdon, The Lost Symbol, was published. According to the publisher, the book sold over a million in hardcover and e-book editions in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada on its first day, resulting in the printing of 600,000 hardcover copies in lieu of the five million first printing.

The tale unfolds in Washington, D.C., for a period of twelve hours, and the Freemasons appear in the film. In addition, the book contains many features that made The Da Vinci Code the country's best seller.

According to Brown's marketing website, puzzles are included in The Da Vinci Code's book jacket, which includes two references to the Kryptos sculpture at CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia, hint at the sequel. In some of Brown's earlier work, he has chosen a relevant theme.

Inferno, Robert Langdon's fourth book, was published on May 14, 2013 by Doubleday. It came in No. 76, the highest rank in the United States. There are more than 1.4 million copies in the United States alone, with one on the New York Times Best Seller list for the first 11 weeks of its inception.

Brown said in a 2006 interview that he had plans for about 12 new books starring Robert Langdon.

Since real people in Brown's books, his characters are often named after real people in his books. Robert Langdon is named after John Langdon, the artist who made the ambigrams used for the Angels & Demons CD and book. On a Claire Day cartoonist friend Carla Ventresca, Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca was named. Langdon recalls a wedding of two people named Dick and Connie, which are the names of his parents' names in the Vatican archives. After Brown's true life editor Jason Kaufman, Robert Langdon's editor Jonas Faukman was named after Brown's real life editor Jason Kaufman. Several characters were also based on a New Hampshire librarian and André Vernet, a French teacher at Exeter, according to Brown. Aldo Baggia, the head coach of modern languages at Phillips Exeter Academy, has been named after Aldo Baggia, an Aldo Baggia.

In interviews, Brown has said that his wife, Blythe, is an art historian and painter. She was the Artistic Development Manager at the National Academy of Songwriters in Los Angeles when they met. During a trial that revealed that Blythe did conduct for the book during the 2006 trial of suspected copyright abuse in The Da Vinci Code, evidence was presented that showed that Blythe did the research for the book. She was referred to as the "chief investigator" in one story.

Origination, Doubleday's seventh book, was published on October 3, 2017. It's the fifth book in Robert Langdon's Robert Langdon series.

Brown's prose style has been chastised, with The Da Vinci Code being described as 'committing style and word choice blunders in almost every paragraph.' Given the book's lackluster writing, author and broadcaster Tony Robinson criticized both the author's historical findings and the writing itself in his 2005 documentary for Channel 4, considering the book to be not particularly well written. The bulk of the critique revolved around Brown's assertion in his preface that the book is based on fact in relation to Opus Dei and the Priory of Sion, and that "all descriptions of artwork, architecture, records, and mysteries in [the] book are accurate."

Brown has been open about a number of other literary influences that have inspired his writing, in addition to Sidney Sheldon.

Brown's favorite plot elements are a simple hero who was thrust out of their familiar setting and thrust into a new one with whom they are unfamiliar, a new form of attraction, imminent danger from a pursuing villain, antagonists with a disability or genetic disorder, and a 24-hour time frame in which the story takes place.

Brown's book is heavily influenced by academic Joseph Campbell, who wrote extensively on mythology and religion and was a central figure in screenwriting. Brown is also accused of basing Robert Langdon on Campbell.

Alfred Hitchcock seems to be another major influence on Brown. The writer favors suspense-laden plots involving an innocent middle-aged man pursued by deadly enemies, glamorous foreign locations, pivotal scenes set in tourist destinations, a cast of wealthy and eccentric characters, young and curvaceous female sidekicks, Catholicism, and MacGuffins, like Hitchcock.

Brown writes in his loft. He told fans that inversion therapy can help with writer's blockade. "hanging upside down seems to help me solve plot problems by transforming my entire perspective," he says.

Lewis Persuade, a writer from August 2005, unsuccessfully sue Brown for plagiarism on the basis of apparent similarity between The Da Vinci Code and his books, The Da Vinci Legacy (1983) and Daughter of God (2000). In part, Judge George B. Daniels said, "A reasonable lay observer would not conclude that the Da Vinci Code is remarkably similar to Daughter of God."

Brown's publisher, Random House, received a copyright infringement lawsuit brought by authors Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, who claimed that Brown stole elements from their 1982 book Holy Grail for his 2003 book The Da Vinci Code. Baigent, Leigh, Leigh, and co-author Henry Lincoln had advanced the belief that Jesus and Mary Magdalene married and had a child, and that the blood line continues to this day. In his book, Brown admitted to referring to the two authors' names. Leigh Teabing, a leading role in both the novel and film, uses Leigh's name as the first name and anagrammatically derives his last name from Baigent's. Mr Justice Peter Smith voted in Brown's favor in the lawsuit, as a private amusement, embedding his own Smithy code in the written decision.

Random House, Brown's publisher, obtained an appeal copyright violation lawsuit on March 28, 2007. Baigent and Leigh's appeals of being responsible for paying legal fees of over US$6 million was dismissed by the Court of Appeal of England and Wales.

Brown has been sued twice in federal court by author Jack Dunn, who claims Brown copied a substantial portion of his book The Da Vinci Code (2006–07) and Angels & Demons (2011-12). Both cases were not allowed to proceed to a jury trial. Jack Dunn, a lawyer from London, brought yet another lawsuit against Brown, claiming that justice was not delivered in the US lawsuits.

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