Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol has now sold over 1.7 million copies in the UK in all editions, with the recent paperback release smashing the record for the most first-week sales. The sequel to Brown's smash hit The Da Vinci Code clocked up 141,156 paperback sales in the week after its release, beating the previous record by 16,000 copies.

The paperback edition of The Lost Symbol is due out on July 22nd in the UK (a mass market paperback will be released in the United States in October). Dan Brown's British publisher says that interest in the paperback is extremely high:

Transworld says it has the biggest paperback subscription in its 60-year history for Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol, out on 22nd July. The publisher also announced there will be more Brown to come for Christmas, with an illustrated version of the book and an enhanced e-book "in the pipeline" for November.

More than 750,000 copies of the new paperback have been subbed across the publisher's UK and international markets, with over 1,300 free-standing display units also shipped out. Publisher Bill Scott-Kerr said support from all retailers had been "stellar". He said: "Dan Brown started out here as a paperback phenomenon and The Lost Symbol is perfectly positioned to continue that momentum."

The Lost Symbol has done some pretty huge business in the UK, but doesn't seem to have had the media impact that The Da Vinci Code did. Not enough scandal and controversy no doubt - DB made those Freemasons far too nice...

In an ironic turn of events, Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol has topped The Bible as the most highlighted book of all time on Amazon's Kindle eReader:

Amazon has built a "Popular Highlights" section that showcases the book passages underlined by Kindle readers--a 21st Century twist on literary quotation. So far, that list has been dominated by The Shack by William P. Young, Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, and The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown.

Here is the most underlined passage from Brown's most higlighted title--underlined by 1,161 Kindle users: "Langdon came face-to-face with a bronze bust of Masonic luminary Albert Pike, along with the engraving of his most famous quote: WHAT WE HAVE DONE FOR OURSELVES ALONE DIES WITH US; WHAT WE HAVE DONE FOR OTHERS AND THE WORLD REMAINS AND IS IMMORTAL."

Does that make Albert Pike bigger than Jesus?

The paperback edition of Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol will be released on October 19 of this year. The novel will be priced at $9.99 in the US market, with a print run of four million copies.

Variety has reported that Columbia Pictures is moving forward with plans for a movie version of Dan Brown's most recent book, The Lost Symbol. Brian Grazer and Ron Howard will once again produce (returning from The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons), although it's not known yet if Howard will also direct. Tom Hanks is expected to reprise his role as Robert Langdon.

In an amusing coincidence, Columbia have signed screenwriter Steven Knight to adapt to the book for film (Akiva Goldsmith penned the two previous adaptations). With Brown's book bringing positive press to the Masonic fraternity, some readers might remember that it was the late British author Stephen Knight (no relation, as far as I know) and his book The Brotherhood which instigated a major scare campaign against Freemasonry in the 1980s....

To view this article in its original typeset format, you can download a PDF version of it, which is a free download of Appendix 1 from The Guide to Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol (just $9.95 on Amazon.com). The Guide takes you deeper into the hidden history of the United States, Freemasonry, Noetic Science, and other topics that Dan Brown wrote about in his latest bestseller. Check out the Guide now, to get a better understanding of the fascinating revelations in The Lost Symbol. Available from Amazon US, Amazon UK, or as a Kindle eBook.

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In late 2003 it was pointed out to me that the dust cover of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code contained a number of curious ‘anomalies’: map co-ordinates in ‘mirror writing’, bolded letters hiding odd messages, and more. The reason for these strange inclusions became clear when Dan Brown announced in an interview that clues about the sequel to The Da Vinci Code were hidden on the cover of the bestselling book. By solving these puzzles and ciphers – and being conversant with many of the topics and resources Brown was likely to use in writing the sequel, I was able to write a complete primer on the as-yet unpublished book in late 2004 (the progenitor of this book you are holding now). In this very early ‘guide’ to the contents of The Lost Symbol – originally titled (and self-published) as Da Vinci In America – I gave background information on many of the topics that I surmised would be in the new book: Francis Bacon and the transmission of Rosicrucian philosophies, the history of Freemasonry, how ‘the Craft’ influenced America’s Founding Fathers, and the esoteric landscape of Washington, D.C. (including such exotic locales as the Scottish Rite’s “House of the Temple”).

When the cover artwork for The Lost Symbol was released in July 2009 I received the first confirmation that my research was on the right track. Though only the front cover and spine design was released prior to publication, it was enough to show that various locations in the American capital which I had written about were important to the new book.

A little help in visualising an early scene in The Lost Symbol: here's the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol in all its glory. The photo was taken during a memorial service for former President Gerald Ford in 2006 (and is in the public domain). Click for a huge version (2000px by 3000px):

Though it hardly needs pointing out, Brumidi's Apotheosis of Washington dominates the upper half of the image. Awe-inspiring setting really.

Before The Lost Symbol was released I wrote an article pointing out the codes on the front cover and spine, and a few of the possible solutions. I've been meaning to update it for a while, but the easiest way is probably just to provide a PDF file of the Appendix 1 from The Guide to The Lost Symbol, in which I give all the codes (so far recognised) and their solutions. So, here it is!

Remember you can buy the complete guide from Amazon US for just $9.95, or if you're on the other side of the pond, from Amazon UK for £7.99 (mad prices, I know). If you're really cheap, or on the cutting-edge of technology (or both), you can instead grab the Kindle version for just $5.99! Either way, I appreciate your interest!

Update 19th Dec, 2009: I've just posted a HTML version of the article as well.

Last week the New York Times featured a crossword puzzle based on The Lost Symbol. You can now download that crossword as a PDF from the official Lost Symbol website. Test your knowledge of the book, and have some fun in the process - it's a good challenge. Thanks to Bill Gates for the heads-up.

Boing Boing recently featured an article on Dan Brown from Arthur Goldway, author of Cults, Conspiracies, and Secret Societies:

No one has ever accused Dan Brown of being a literary stylist; he's too easy to parody. His narrators natter on like chatty tour guides, bludgeoning us with trivia and heavy-handed exposition. His hero Robert Langdon seems to suffer from a testosterone deficiency; his celibate bad guys, with their bulging muscles and self-mortified flesh, are creepily fetishized. But ANGELS AND DEMONS, THE DA VINCI CODE, and now THE LOST SYMBOL do more than merely lead their legions of readers on merry chases; they exhort them to reconsider their world view. Though the answers he provides may be trivial and sometimes historically inaccurate, the questions Brown asks us to consider are worth pondering. Does the church misrepresent Christianity? Is history filled with mysteries and intrigues that mainstream chronicles elide? Are science and religion converging?

Brown earnestly wants us to expand our view of human potential, to open ourselves up to a whole new paradigm--one that is more capacious and filled with possibilities than either secular scientism or the traditional Judeo-Christian world view.

Some criticism in there mixed up with fascinating discussion about a number of the topics covered in The Lost Symbol. Intelligent stuff for the most part, and worth a read.