Holiday Sale! Save 20% on a BookBrowse membership - for yourself or to give as a gift.

Beyond the Book: Background information when reading Map of Bones

Summary |  Excerpt |  Reviews |  Beyond the Book |  Read-Alikes |  Genres & Themes |  Author Bio

Map of Bones

by James Rollins

Map of Bones by James Rollins X
Map of Bones by James Rollins
  • Critics' Opinion:

    Readers' Opinion:

  • First Published:
    May 2005, 448 pages

    Paperback:
    May 2006, 560 pages

    Genres

  • Rate this book


Book Reviewed by:
BookBrowse Review Team
Buy This Book

About this Book

Beyond the Book

This article relates to Map of Bones

Print Review

Interesting facts according to Rollins:

  • The Vatican maintains a sophisticated intelligence-gathering operation, even employing full-time agents.
  • Catholic canon law requires every chapel or church altar to enclose some form of relic within it. The Vatican maintains its own 'relics library,' a storehouse of filing cabinets, shelves, and drawers filled with bits of bone or spoonfuls of dust.
  • The science behind this story is not fiction, but based on current research. The investigations center on a new form of solid matter that was recently discovered -- or rather re-discovered?
  • He came up with the storyline for Map of Bones before The Da Vinci Code was published and decided to tell the story now because 'many thrillers, when collided with the Catholic Church or the Vatican, paint the Church, faith, and belief in a disparaging light. In Map of Bones, I sought to show the Church and its past in a manner that is both realistic and acknowledges some of the Vatican's corrupted past...'.

For more read the interview at BookBrowse....

Filed under

This "beyond the book article" relates to Map of Bones. It originally ran in June 2005 and has been updated for the May 2006 paperback edition. Go to magazine.

This review is available to non-members for a limited time. For full access become a member today.
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Holiday Sale!

Discover exceptional books
for just $3/month.

Find out more


Award Winners

  • Book Jacket: The Covenant of Water
    The Covenant of Water
    by Abraham Verghese
    BookBrowse Fiction Award 2023

    Along the Malabar Coast of South India in 1900, a 12-year-old girl ...
  • Book Jacket: In Memoriam
    In Memoriam
    by Alice Winn
    BookBrowse Debut Book Award 2023

    Alice Winn's remarkable debut, In Memoriam, opens in 1914 at ...
  • Book Jacket: The Wager
    The Wager
    by David Grann
    BookBrowse Nonfiction Award 2023

    David Grann is a journalist, a staff writer for The New Yorker and...
  • Book Jacket: Remember Us
    Remember Us
    by Jacqueline Woodson
    BookBrowse YA Book Award 2023

    Remember Us is set largely across a single hazy summer of the 1970s in...

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
Julia
by Sandra Newman
From critically acclaimed novelist Sandra Newman, a brilliantly relevant retelling of Orwell's 1984 from the point of Smith's lover, Julia.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Alfie and Me
    by Carl Safina

    A moving account of raising, then freeing, an orphaned screech owl. Three starred reviews!

  • Book Jacket

    This Is Salvaged
    by Vauhini Vara

    Stories of uncanny originality from Vauhini Vara, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction.

Who Said...

Our wisdom comes from our experience, and our experience comes from our foolishness

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.