Dan Brown

Dan Brown was born on June 22, 1964, in Exeter, NH. After graduating from Phillips Exeter Academy, Brown attended Amherst College, where he was a member of Psi Upsilon fraternity. Brown spent the 1985 school year abroad in Seville, Spain, where he was enrolled in an art history course at the University of Seville. Brown graduated from Amherst in 1986. After graduating from Amherst, Brown dabbled with a musical career. In 1994 Brown released a CD titled Angels & Demons. Its artwork was the same ambigram by artist John Langdon which he later used for the novel Angels & Demons.

While on holiday in Tahiti in 1993, Brown read Sidney Sheldon's novel The Doomsday Conspiracy, and was inspired to become a writer of thrillers. Brown's first three novels had little success, with fewer than 10,000 copies in each of their first printings. His fourth novel, The Da Vinci Code, became a bestseller, going to the top of the New York Times Best Seller list during its first week of release in 2003. It is now credited with being one of the most popular books of all time. Its success has helped push sales of Brown's earlier books. In 2004 all four of his novels were on the New York Times list in the same week,

His books have been translated into 52 languages, and as of 2012, sold over 200 million copies. Two of them, The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons, have been adapted into films.