From cover: "Dan Brown's bestselling novel, Angels & Demons, has become an international success to rival The Da Vinci Code, introducing millions of readers to a world where science and Christianity, usually poles apart, are brought together by an extraordinary scientific breakthrough; a hidden path of ancient symbols and pagan signs is revealed via the sites of statues and churches throughout Rome; and the revived Illuminati- legendary secret society and enemy of the Church - is seemingly intent on the complete annihilation of the Vatican and the ruination of the Catholic faith.

But on turning the novel's last page, many readers are left wondering what was true and what was fictional distortion. Illuminating Angels & Demons is the essential companion to the book, giving vital background information and shedding new light on the many mysteries at the heart of the story. Using a simple A-Z format it reveals the historical basis of the religious and scientific mysteries of the book, including important facts about all the significant characters, and full color photographs of the classic statues and sites in Rome where the key scenes occur.

Illuminating Angels & Demons is an invaluable factual guide for the many fans of the novel and all those interested in the fascinating truth behind the legend of the Illuminati."

Personally, when I was about a third of the way through Angels & Demons, I started wondering what pieces of the story were fact... a chance wandering of the bookstore led me to this book... I am still reading Angels & Demons, now along with this companion book... and it occurred to me that there may be other Bookcrossers out there who were intrigued enough by the fact or fiction questions of Angels & Demons that they would enjoy this book as well... consequently I'm going to post a bookring suggestion and see how it goes over!

Ai-ai-ai!! Those random three numbers at the beginning of each BCID?? Came up "666" for this book!! How funky is that?? Gotta love it!!! *grin*

BOOKRING INFO:

1. Please journal when you receive the book AND when you have read it and are mailing it on to the next participant.
2. Please don't keep the book longer than one month - or if you must keep it longer, please PM me and let me know.
3. As originally noted, overseas shipping should be AIRMAIL please. If, for some reason, if you absolutely cannot ship airmail, please let me know.
4. Pass the book along as quickly as possible, but please do ENJOY it! I look forward to reading your comments!
5. I'll try to track the progress on the book's journal. I'm starting by mailing this book to dodau on March 12.

1. dodau, Bristol, England, UK
2. ekaterin4luv, Bayern, Germany
3. zenita, Denmark
4. dagett, Austria
5. Lpree, Maryland, USA
6. dufffy, Connecticut, USA
7. Czersk, Minnesota, USA
8.Back to me in Colorado!

CdnBlueRose, Colorado, USA

Mailed March 12 to dodau - first participant in bookring! ENJOY!

I love it when the BCID matches the style of the book. Arrived safely yesterday and will read it in the next few days.

Some of the explainations were quite long winded and I found myself skipping the history of Rome and Vatican City. Others were very illuminating, pun intended, like the one about how they check the pope is dead. Call his name three times then hit him on the head with a hammer. If he wasn't dead he will be after that. Definately interesting to read after Angels and Demons.

RELEASE NOTES:

Good timing! And with the Pope now dead this book is right on time. I will read the part about the death of the Pope asap.
And thanks for the beautiful card and bookmarker, dodau!

Sorry, that it took me that long, but I didn`t want to read this book alone, so I read Angels and Demons paralell to this one. It must have been a funny sight. A copy of Angels and Demons, Illuminating ~ and various cards and sightseeing guides of Rome all piled up around me. I thought, if I'm doing this, than I want to do it right (but got overboard a bit ;))
My thoughts: this book is interesting, but only in companion to Angels and Demons. To read this from A to Z is kind of boring.

On the way to Zenita

Had almost given up on this one. Didn't think it would take 3 weeks to get from Germany to Denmark, but finaly it is here.

Read it A to Z .... almost.
Read Angels and Demons a couple of months ago, so it was quite fresh in my mind. Nice to get a few tings clarified.

On its way to Austria.

The book arrived yesterday! I'll start reading right away. Thanks for sharing it with me!

I wish I hadn't gulped down Angels and Demons so greedily! It was fresh enough in my mind though that I could read the explanations with benefit. Illuminating Angels and Demons triggered my historical interest and led me to further investigations concerning the Vatican, the Lateran Treaty ect. . . Now I wish I had a one-dollar bill at hand, to count for myself ;-)

On the way to Maryland!

This arrived in today's mail. I've read all of Dan Brown's books and they all left me wondering where the line between truth and fiction lies in those stories, so I'm very excited to be able to check this book out. I do have a few other bookrings ahead of it, but will read it as soon as I can.

I started reading this, but it's been a while since I read Angels & Demons and this is a book that should be read at the same time or immediately after. Since I've got other rings calling my name, I'm going to go ahead and mail this on. But I did find the bit I read pretty interesting, and perhaps will pick up this at the store one of these days and I can re-read Angels & Demons with it.

Thanks very much to CdnBlueRose for starting this ring! I will mail this out as soon as I can.

UPDATE - mailed 8/6

received via book ring - thanks! Will read and send on ASAP

It's here! I am planning on coordinating the reading of this book with the re-reading of Angels and Demons which I intend to start as soon as the book I'm reading currently is finished. I am impressed with the timing. In just over a week I'm starting college, which means the start of my Deciphering the Da Vinci Code seminar. A lot of Dan Brown illumination all at once- but that's not a bad thing! I can't wait to get started.

A lot of the topics that were covered in this book were already familiar to me, so I didn't bother to read the book from cover to cover. Instead, I just made sure I had it at hand whenever I sat down to read Angels & Demons and used it as reference whenever I was in particular need of illumination. The pictures I thought were the most helpful-- I wish there had been more, actually. Most of the statues and buildings I had never heard of and obviously never seen, so creating a mental picture was difficult the first time I read it. Thank you all very much for this book.

Off to CdnBlueRose . . .

Arrived home today! I want to thank each and every one of you for taking such very good care of this book! One would never know it's had such a lengthy travel!!

This is the only bookring I've done to date and I enjoyed watching it travel, but it's journey is not done, now it's off to Alabama!

Mailing off to my BookRelay pal cheesygiraffe tomorrow morning as a RABCK - ENJOY!

Thanks for the rabck, Rosie! :D

Drastically thinning out my TBR shelves and making this AVL.

Sending to appaloosatb for "You''re Such an Animal" release challenge.

Thanks so much for the huge box of animal books! I can''t wait to start releasing them. Hopefully we will get some good journal entries!

An Angel (as in Angelfish) is hiding in this book title ready for the 2007 September "You''re Such an Animal" release challenge!

RELEASE NOTES:

Released as part of the 2007 You're Such an Animal release challenge.

If you are new to BookCrossing and find this book and this site; welcome! Enjoy the site, the book and hopefully the BookCrossing community. I hope you'll join BookCrossing (doesn't cost anything to join!) and if you do, please consider using any previous reader of this book, or me, appaloosatb, as your referring member. If you are an old hand at BookCrossing, thanks for picking up the book! Either way, I hope you'll make a journal entry so all the previous and future readers can track this book's journey. Thanks, and Happy 'Crossings!