Yet 40 million people bought the hard bound copy of the book. And to be fair to Brown, most best selling "paperback" authors are not great writers. I am currently on a historical fiction book kick. Most of these books also spend a good deal of time educating the readder on the background material, so the readers can grok the storyline. It is actually an appeal for these books, at least for me. Getting back to The Da Vinci Code, I stumbled onto some clearly fictionally material that can not be obscured by the myopia of history, Brown wrote that the great Age of Aquarius has started circa 2000; he is only off by 300 years or so. Brown needed the Age of Aquarius to provide motivation for the Church vs Priory/Templar conflict, but alas it is not so. Brown also made some claims about Constantine driving the Nicene Council decisions, which I have not read elsewhere. Another thing Brown mentioned is that Jewish men at 0 CE ish who were single were likely outcasts, since there was great societal pressure to be "married with children" in adulthood. This is something else I have not read, but would be surprised if it was true. This has peaked my curiosity, so I will definitely do further reading later.
