Brought to book

Nigel Biggar (Why I, September 23) doubts if Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code "will ever end up on the reading list of a degree course". Actually, it figures on mine, along with the - much better - bestseller The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith.

This is to enable MA publishing studies students to debate the processes that create a bestseller, and how such a badly written, poorly constructed and error-strewn (Versailles north-east of Paris!) text such as Brown's can sell such a stupendous number of copies. We are still looking for the reason.

Iain Stevenson, department of journalism and publishing, City University