Hey, it's NPR's book of the day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. I was in high school when the

Da Vinci Code fever hit. It was one of those books that was just everywhere. I'd actually be

hard pressed to think of a novel since that's had such a large cultural impact. Well,

the book's author, Dan Brown, is back at it again with a follow-up. This one is called

The Secret of Secrets. And listen, at the end of the day, these are mystery thrillers, right? But

in this interview with NPR Scott Detrow, it's clear that Brown is just using the genre as a

vehicle to ask some really big questions about human consciousness and what really happens after we die.

That's ahead.

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Robert Langdon is back in action, the dashing and brilliant Harvard professor who has a knack for

wandering into situations where he unearths big philosophical questions and at the same time

gets chased around by bad guys who do not want those questions answered. Langdon is, of course,

the recurring main character and author Dan Brown's thrillers, The Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons,

and many others. In Brown's latest novel, The Secret of Secrets, Langdon has traded the mysteries

of Christianity and the mysteries of Freemasonry for the even bigger mystery of the nature

of human consciousness. Dan Brown, welcome to all things considered. Thanks for having me.

So this is by My Count, your sixth book starring Robert Langdon.

How has he changed over the years?

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