Today: 22 June Birthday of Dan Brown – Author of the books – The Da Vinci Code, Digital Fortress, The Lost Symbol, Inferno, Deception Point, Angels and Demons.

Dan Gerhard Brown was born on June 22, 1964, in Exeter, New Hampshire. He has a younger sister, Valerie (born 1968) and brother, Gregory (born 1974). Brown attended Exeter's public schools until the ninth grade. He grew up on the campus of Phillips Exeter Academy, where his father, Richard G. Brown, was a teacher of mathematics and wrote textbooks from 1968 until his retirement in 1997. His mother, Constance (née Gerhard), trained as a church organist and student of sacred music.

Brown's interest in secrets and puzzles stems from their presence in his household as a child, where codes and ciphers were the linchpin tying together the mathematics, music, and languages in which his parents worked. The young Brown spent hours working out anagrams and crossword puzzles, and he and his siblings participated in elaborate treasure hunts devised by their father on birthdays and holidays. On Christmas, for example, Brown and his siblings did not find gifts under the tree, but followed a treasure map with codes and clues throughout their house and even around town to find the gifts. Brown's relationship with his father inspired that of Sophie Neveu and Jacques Saunière in The Da Vinci Code, and Chapter 23 of that novel was inspired by one of his childhood treasure hunts.

After graduating from Phillips Exeter, Brown attended Amherst College, where he was a member of Psi Upsilon fraternity. He played squash, sang in the Amherst Glee Club, and was a writing student of visiting novelist Alan Lelchuk. Brown spent the 1985 school year abroad in Seville, Spain, where he was enrolled in an art history course at the University of Seville. Brown graduated from Amherst in 1986.

Sources:

1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Brown