Making his first public appearance since the copyright infringement trial ended in London, Dan Brown told the capacity crowd at Portsmouth, NH's Music Hall (and the Boston Globe's David Mehegan reported back) about his confusion with regards to the lawsuit, why his book got delayed till next year, and why he's glad to see all these knockoffs...er...other novels in the DVC style.

"My feeling is, these books are wonderful," Brown said, although he noted he had not read them. Their strong disagreement with him, he said, "creates a dialogue which is vigorous and powerful. Religion has only one true enemy: apathy. The best antidote to apathy is passionate debate." He quoted a British priest, whom he did not name, as having said that "Christianity has survived Galileo and Darwin; it can surely survive Dan Brown."

Strangely enough, Brown mentioned the same quote -- and wore the same sport jacket -- in a keynote speech he delivered last October in Manchester support the New Hampshire Humanities Council at their 16th Annual Dinner. Which probably just makes him someone who likes to repeat the same talking points over and over, even if a quick search couldn't find any such priest who uttered such a quote...

(Ron adds: Of course, some of the people in that audience were surely wondering, hey, when's the sequel coming out? Well, as The Book Standard reported late Friday, the official word is: Wait until next year. "My books are time-consuming to research and complicated to construct," Brown wrote in an e-mail distributed by Doubleday. "I am taking the time necessary to ensure that this new book is every bit as entertaining as The Da Vinci Code." Insert your own punchline here, if you're so inclined...)