Investigating the murder of a Louvre curator, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon and French cryptologist Sophie Neveu find clues painted into a Da Vinci work, inadvertently uncovering a plot involving the Holy Grail and the secret society known as the Priory of Sion.

"Americans love musicals. Americans invented musicals. Americans perfected musicals. But what, exactly, is a musical? In [this book], Jack Viertel takes them apart, puts them back together, sings their praises, marvels at their unflagging inventiveness, and occasionally despairs over their more embarrassing shortcomings. In the process, he invites us to fall in love all over again by showing us how musicals happen, what makes them work, how they captivate...

"This comprehensive introduction to art and design explores making artifacts as a process of making meaning. Making Art: Form and Meaning offers a framework for understanding how all the aspects of an artwork -- subject matter, medium, form, process, and contexts -- interact. The text's wide array of examples and its emphasis on late-modernism and postmodern art give students a thorough look at the expressive possibilities of traditional design elements...