On September 15, 2009, THE LOST SYMBOL came off press. Fans of THE DA VINCI CODE, with more than 80 million copies in print perhaps the bestselling novel of all time, were thrilled–they had been waiting for Dan Brown to write another book for six years. Random House, B&N, and Amazon were delighted; they moved more than a million copies in twenty four hours and another million copies by the end of the week; two months later, it still sits high atop the bestseller lists.The Masons breathed a sigh of relief, because, even if Brown had sensationalized their secret rites and made them look a little silly (drinking wine out of skulls and all that–which come to think of it, is a lot less demeaning than donning fezzes and driving miniature cars in parades, which members of the Masonic fraternity called the Ancient Arab Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, better known as the Shriners, do right out in public), he portrayed them as men of reason, and implied that their ranks are still as crowded with the powerful and the wealthy — Cabinet secretaries, plutocrats, Senators, Museum directors — as they were two centuries ago, when they could count Goethe, Mozart, George Washington, Lafayette and Paul Revere among their members.
The Lost Symbol has topped the book charts for Christmas.
Dan Brown’s best-selling thriller The Lost Symbol has topped the book charts for Christmas.
The “unstoppable juggernaut” of a book will be in the top slot on Christmas Day after clocking up the most sales last week, retailer Waterstone’s said.
The Lost Symbol pulled clear of its rivals after facing stiff competition from Guinness World Records 2010, which was number one last week.
Eclipse, the latest in Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight saga, placed third.
“The Lost Symbol broke every record when it was published – biggest and fastest-selling adult hardback fiction title, biggest-selling eBook, biggest print run from publisher Transworld,” said Waterstone’s fiction buyer Janine Cook.
‘Phenomenal’
“It’s not been far from the top of the charts since publication, and it’s a great gift, which is why it’s back on top.”
‘Lost Symbol’ leads to lots of new finds on bookshelves
After Dan Brown’s mega-selling “The Da Vinci Code” appeared in 2003, tracking the further adventures of Harvard University symbologist Robert Langdon (who first came on the scene in 2000’s “Angels & Demons”), publishers were quick to unleash a landslide of titles to feed off the novel’s success.
Some were well-written fiction adventures that stood on their own while others were hastily constructed reactions to Brown’s thesis that Mary Magdalene was married to Jesus Christ and was pregnant by him when he was crucified. Many critics saw “The Da Vinci Code” as a heretical attack on the Catholic Church and pointed to factual errors, while other literary observers called it a exciting mystery.
With the success of Brown’s long-awaited sequel, “The Lost Symbol,” it’s a case of deja vu as a number of titles have appeared since September, this time concerning themselves with Brown’s exploration of Freemasonry and its impact on the nation’s capital and U.S. history.
