ON MY BOOKSHELF

“ The DaVinci Code”

By Dan Brown

Scott Herzing , 27

Director, The Tutoring Club

Tutoring Club Director Scott Herzing is taking a personal stake in showing his students the rewards of studying. This past year Herzing has read more than 15 books. “I figure I had better educate myself if I'm going to teach anybody else,” concedes Herzing. Actually Herzing is plenty seasoned in both life experience and formal education. After graduating from Leland in '94, Scott moved on, playing tackle for the Cal-Poly San Luis Obispo football team, while completing a degree in business marketing. Next, Scott took a few years and tested the booming tech industry working for Dell Computer Corp . in Austin, Texas, before he settled in running the Tutoring Club on Almaden Expressway, next to the PW Supermarket. “The Tutoring Club really gives kids the leg up on competition,” says Herzing. “And my reading along, right next to the kids gives me the credibility to tell the kids about the rewards of reading.” Lately Scott has been working on Dan Brown's bestseller, “ The DaVinci Code.”

The “ DaVinci Code” employs typical murder-mystery circumstances to question the legitimacy of the common public's notions about religion and history. The Louvre Museum of Art in Paris, France, serves as the setting for the violent murder of the landmark's chief curator. The victim also happens to be the last living member of the Priory of Sion, a secret society boasting past participants including Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli, Victor Hugo, and DaVinci himself. Coincidentally, Robert Langdon, a world-renowned professor of Symbolism at Harvard, was scheduled for a visit with the curator on the day of his death. Police assume Langdon must be connected to the murder, however, there is another suspect as well: the curator's daughter, a lovely French police cryptologist. Ultimately, the two suspects determine the murder's motive, revealing a world far different from the one we now perceive.

“The “ DaVinci Code” really makes you think about all that you have ever been told,” says Herzing. “You need to keep an open mind when you read it, but remember: it's just a book.” -By Justin Petersen