Quote of the day

"If a reviewer is beating me up, I just say, 'Oh well, my writing is not to his or her taste.' And that's as far as it goes. Because I will simultaneously read a review where somebody says, 'Oh my God, I had so much fun reading this book and I learned so much.'"

Dan Brown is given the platform of an interview on the BBC website to moan about his critics (such as Michael Deacon, for instance) and comes out with a beautiful Accidental Partridgism. Presumably his new book Inferno comes with the endorsement "Lovely stuff" from Shakin' Stevens on the jacket...

In the article Brown goes on to say that "if you believe the people who hate you, you become... maybe intimidated, or whatever the word might be, and you don't write as well." God forbid that Brown should ever become intimidated - not sure his writing could plumb depths any lower...