Advantages: Makes any space safe and has endless uses
Disadvantages: Only for the rich…needs plenty of space

...Imagine if you will a small front room (13’ 7” x 13’ 5”) where one wall of the room is taken up by a fabulous stone fireplace with stove, hearth and green marble effect plinths either side. Now imagine small baby learning to walk…and fall near this beautifully but dangerously appointed hearth! Well now you are in my living room watching my son take is first steps (well in the next month or so). I looked around at fireguards, which are all very nice and functional, but only protect the actual hearth area. I need to literally cordon off the entire wall. How was I going to do it? Well I spotted the BabyDen, made confusingly by BabyDan! The BabyDen is essentially a hexagonal playpen which comes with a gate, so you can just walk in, as opposed to having to stretch and reach into conventional playpens. However, the BabyDen can also... Read review

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Advantages: Informative, inspirational, well-filmed
Disadvantages: None

...If Dan Pearson, he of the tousled hair and sensuous mouth, cannot turn you onto gardening, then there is no hope for you. Not that there haven’t been other gardeners with certain earthy attractions. Many a lady gardener has sighed at the grass-roots tones of the late Geoff Hamilton, while I confess to having had a soft spot for Geoffrey Smith in his hey-day. Even the hapless Alan Titchmarsh, constantly upstaged by the bra-less Charlie Dimmock, has his army of fans, gardeners or not. Not that gardening is about sex, or attraction, or any of those things….. Well, actually, it is. In this new gardening programme from BBC 2, we see an unassuming master at work. In ‘The Garden with Dan Pearson’, that is! Dan Pearson is one of a new breed of garden designers. That is not to say he is all blue decking... Read review

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Advantages: Well-filmed, sensitively presented, educational and inspirational
Disadvantages: None

...If Dan Pearson, he of the tousled hair and sensuous mouth, cannot turn you onto gardening, then there is no hope for you. Not that there haven’t been other gardeners with certain earthy attractions. Many a lady gardener has sighed at the grass-roots tones of the late Geoff Hamilton, while I confess to having had a soft spot for Geoffrey Smith in his hey-day. Even the hapless Alan Titchmarsh, constantly upstaged by the bra-less Charlie Dimmock, has his army of fans, gardeners or not. Not that gardening is about sex, or attraction, or any of those things….. Well, actually, it is. In this new gardening programme from BBC 2, we see an unassuming master at work. In ‘The Garden with Dan Pearson’, that is! Dan Pearson is one of a new breed of garden designers. That is not to say he is all blue decking... Read review

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Advantages: Exhilirating Read, Suspense is high, Left on constant cliff-hangars!
Disadvantages: You can not put the book down, especially when working!

...Firstly, I am in the process of writing reviews for each of Dan Brown's four books that have become bestsellers so soon there will be three more! But I thought I would start with, what I thought was the best first! I would classify this book under the reading genre of thriller! Dan Brown is a well known author who has been writing quality American novels since teaching English. The Da Vinci code is not part of a series of books as such but is the second bestselling novel written by Dan Brown. However, the main protagonist has been followed through into this novel. While in Paris on business, the main protagonist: Robver Langdon recieves a late-night phone call informing him that the curator of the Louvre has been murdered inside the museum. Adjacent to the body, police have found a set of complex codes. Alongside Robert... Read review

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Advantages: Excellent, exciting and fast paced thriller
Disadvantages: Keeps you hooked, so forget doing other things

...Dan Brown Dan Brown is an American author of numerous number 1 bestsellers of thriller fiction his novels include: Digital Fortress, Deception Point, Angels and Demons, The Da Vinci Code and The Solomon Key soon to be released in 2006. Main Characters The main character in the story is Robert Langdon who also appears in the other novel the famous The Da Vinci Code and joins forces with Vittoria Vectra. Introduction to the story Robert Langdon a Harvard Professor of religious Symbology is awoken by a mysterious caller at 5.18am. Annoyed Langdon goes back to bed and ignores the caller, then a fax comes through on his fax machine a few minutes later, groaning Langdon picks up the fax and stares at it in horror, shocked and intrigued at the same time he see's a dead corpse, head twisted back, stripped naked with a single word... Read review

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Advantages: A cracking good read.
Disadvantages: tainted by allegations of an "anti-Christian" agenda

...~ ~ A comment on my previous review of the thriller “Digital Fortress” by American author Dan Brown, who also wrote the bestseller "The Da Vinci Code", gave me pause for thought. It was along the lines that Dan Brown was using his novels to promote an “anti-Christian” agenda. In particular, it's alleged by many people that his most bitter vitriol and criticism is saved for the Roman Catholic Church. Obviously, as I am both Christian and Catholic (in that order) that notion caused me some concern, so I went off to investigate the claim in a bit more detail to see whether or not it was true, and if the claims had any substance. I read my third novel by Dan Brown, “Angels and Demons”, with a far more critical eye than I had read the previous two as a result of having taking on board this perceived anti-Christian agenda which he... Read review

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Advantages: Exciting, Educational, Fast Paced
Disadvantages: It keeps you hooked, meaning you can't do other things

...Having read Dan Brown's 'The Da Vinci Code', I decided that I had to read his other books, and I started with Angels and Demons. Dan Brown uses the same basic story structure as in The Da Vinci Code, but it is of course about a completely different subject, although religion does play a very important part. As with The Da Vinci Code, the book is filled with useful facts, and Dan Brown's website contains some additional information for those interested. The story starts in CERN, Geneva, and progresses on to the Vatican. Dan Brown explains the connections (or not) between religion and science, and presents some interesting views on the links which I hadn't thought of before. Admittedly nothing can be proven about God etc., but this book does contain interpretations which differ from the usual stories. The research that went... Read review

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Advantages: Fast, Can't Put Down, Loads Of Twists.......Brilliant
Disadvantages: Lots of details - could confuse people

...I read this book whilst on holiday this year and it really is one of those books which you can not put down, so after finshing it within my first week I had nothing else to read for the rest of the hoiday, as I wasn't expecting it to be that good! This is my first Dan Brown book I have read as I was told that it was best to read this before I read the Da Vinci Code - also by Dan Brown. This book does have a bit of a slow start but you shouldn't be put off by this as it helps to explain key factors needed to understadn the rest of the plot. The book does go into a little depth about physics - luckily I had done physics at A Level, and visited CERN - a Physics Laboratory - so I easily understood it, but for someone who was new to it, I think it could have been a little bit confusing to understand some things. However Dan Brown does try... Read review

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Advantages: A cracking good yarn
Disadvantages: It's full of holes and poorly researched

...~ ~ For the past few months American author Dan Brown has been topping the paperback bestseller lists here in Ireland, with all four of his published novels in the first four positions, the “Da Vinci Code” seemingly a permanent fixture at No. 1. To be honest, it’s not hard to see why, as all four novels are taut, exciting, and extremely well crafted conspiracy thrillers, and there’s nothing the reading public likes more than a damned good conspiracy to get the old juices flowing. ~ ~ In the most celebrated and most recent of his novels, “The Da Vinci Code” (2003), Brown returns once more to the theme he successfully exploited in another of his novels, “Angels And Demons”, namely the Roman Catholic Church and, according to Brown at any rate, its multifarious and devious machinations to exploit the public and the entire world for its... Read review

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Advantages: A tense, gripping page turner from a master of the art
Disadvantages: Somewhat predictable and characters typical of the author - not a major departure

...Like most of you, I came to Dan Brown through the Da Vinci Code. As someone who is naturally interested in books on religion and history, I was fascinated by the whole phenomenon and the ideas it sparked and quickly followed up my initial read with Angels and Demons. I was a trifle surprised therefore, when I came to Deception Point, the third of the Dan Brown oeuvre to attract my attention, to discover it differed from the previous two in a major way. Out goes the mystery based in religion and the inner workings of the Catholic Church, and in instead comes the US Presidential Election, NASA and a mystery based high above the Arctic circle. The basis of Brown's appeal however remains reassuringly intact. As usual he opens with a bang - the unexplained death of a geologist and his sled dogs. We cut quickly to Washington... Read review

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