Six years after the release of the best seller The Da Vinci Code,
comes The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown. Doubleday Publishing Group announced
that the new book featuring The Da Vinci Code’s symbologist Robert
Langdon will be released on September 15, 2009. “This novel has been a
strange and wonderful journey,” Brown said in a statement issued
recently by his publisher.
 “Weaving five years of research into the story’s twelve-hour time
frame was an exhilarating challenge. Robert Langdon’s life clearly moves
a lot faster than mine.”
Sonny Mehta, Chairman and Editor in Chief of the Knopf Doubleday
Publishing Group revealed that the first printing will be 5 million
copies, the highest in the publisher’s history. “The Lost Symbol is a
brilliant and compelling thriller...” said Mehta in a press release.
“Dan Brown’s prodigious talent for storytelling, infused with history,
codes and intrigue, is on full display in this new book.
This is one of the most anticipated publications in recent history,
and it was well worth the wait.”
Brown’s longtime editor, Vice president and executive editor at
Doubleday, Jason Kaufman said that nothing is as it first seems in a
Brown novel and The Lost Symbol is no exception.
He assured that the new novel set in a ‘masterful and unexpected new
landscape’ will be full of surprises. The Lost Symbol is already number
1 in Barnes & Noble.com and Amazon.com bestseller charts, months ahead
of release.
More good news for Brown fans is that Angels & Demons which has also
been adapted into a movie, directed by Ron Howard,starring Tom Hanks
will make its debut Friday the 15th this month! Before becoming a
novelist, Brown was a singer-songwriter and pianist. His first book 187
Men to Avoid:
A Survival Guide for the Romantically Frustrated Woman, co-written
with his wife, Blythe Brown, was published under the pseudonym Danielle
Brown in 1995. Brown, 44, was said to have been inspired by the
commercial fiction of Sydney Sheldon.
A native of Exeter, N.H., he still lives in his home state with his
wife. He often dedicates his books to his wife and had once claimed that
she is a virtual co-author to The Da Vinci Code, his fourth novel, and
brought a feminine perspective to a novel so steeped in ‘the sacred
feminine, goddess worship and the feminine aspect of spirituality’.
An Amherst College graduate, he has claimed that he long gave up
wanting to be a literary writer for becoming a novelist who wrote for
the masses.
However neither he nor his publishers expected such a success for The
Da Vinci Code, which was the bestselling hardcover adult novel of all
time with 81 million copies in print worldwide and has been translated
into more than 50 languages.
It still remains on best-seller lists for more than three years,
inspiring countless other works of conspiracy books, travel books,
parodies and religious works. The emergence of The Da Vinci Code, made
million sales out of his previous novels like Deception Point and Angels
& Demons.
 Did you know that Robert Landon - protagonist of Angels & Demons, The
Da Vinci Code and The Lost Symbol - has an official website! Just Google
Robert Langdon and click on “The Official Web Site of Harvard
Symbologist Robert Langdon.”
You’d find a lot of clues as to what Brown enthusiasts believe are
clues to what The Lost Symbol is all about! In the website under Current
Project you will find reference to a recent discovery made by Langdon, a
parchment which is believed to be Da Vinci’s long lost prediction of the
future that was believed to have been made just days before his death.
“Leonardo’s encoded message consists of 24 symbols. Robert Langdon is
certain there exists a key, and he is working very hard to find it.”
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The blockbuster adaptation of The Da Vinci Code, titled the same,
starring Tom Hanks, made more than $700 million at the box office since
it was released in 2006 although it was mauled by critics.
The controversial and daring speculation that Jesus had fathered a
child with Mary Magdalene, dwelt in The Da Vinci Code, subjected the
book as well as the movie to much resistance from scholars, critics and
religious officials alike.
Brown became increasingly reluctant to make public appearances and
media statements during this time. Controversies make books all the more
interesting. The Da Vinci Code’s critics learned the hard way that
resisting such controversies could only help to increase the book’s
sales.
Dan Brown has kept all his fans in suspense as year after year passed
without the promised sequel to The Da Vinci Code. Some were starting to
fear that he was suffering from permanent writer’s block, and would
never write again like those who were never got over the fame they
received for their prodigious novels, like Forever Amber author Kathleen
Winsor.
As far back as 2004, Doubleday Publishing Group hinted at a sequel
tentatively titled The Solomon Key. It was widely believed to be about
Freemasons in Washington, D.C, because Brown has been spotted several
times over the years in Washington, apparently researching Masonic
temples.
However there is no telling what or who the novel is all about.
Doubleday has refused to reveal any information about the novel, but is
believed to involve a global cult and a race against time to unlock a
secret formula! |
