The Holy Blood – Holy Grail – Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln (1982)

Written as a follow up to a BBC documentary, this is the book where the authors presented an ‘audacious’ and groundbreaking hypothesis : theories which of course have achieved notoriety in the shape of Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code. It’s funny – on the back cover ( it did cause a fair amount of hoo-ha when it was released) Newsweek said ‘ A brilliant thriller in the making’ – and of course, as we know, some people came along and did just that. Definitely worth a read. Of course for all Templar and Grail enthusiasts but nowadays anyone who wanted to know about where some of the ideas presented in the fictional Da Vinci Code had their roots ( and enough information and bibliography is presented in the text for people to take their own research further and draw their own conclusions about the subject matter) Again – they make it clear that theirs is a startling hypothesis and a set of speculations about historical events.

via shorno.net