ANAKIN ABRAMOWICZ ABIFF. I just received Dan Brown's latest, The Lost Symbol, and finished it very quickly (before even sending payment off to the book club.) Because the work is a mystery, Book Review N^o. 34 will eschew spoilers, although the title of the review captures the main plot elements, particularly for readers familiar with Mr Brown's previous work. I will confess to cracking up at some of Harvard's Professor Robert Langdon's classroom management techniques, and to dissatisfaction with the premise of the mystery he has to solve. Whenever, dear reader, you begin to think that long-lived organizations that cloak themselves in ritual and mystery are custodians of powerful or disturbing knowledge, listen to One Tin Soldier and remember that Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man That he didn't, didn't already have, and then get to work developing your own powerful or disturbing knowledge.

(Cross-posted to 50 Book Challenge.)