books

Random House Finally Exhales

Da (Vinci) man, Dan Brown.

After months of pink slips, Random House finally has a red-letter day, announcing that Dan Brown’s desperately anticipated follow-up to The Da Vinci CodeThe Lost Symbol — will be released in September. The megapublisher went through a painful restructuring earlier this year, which some blamed partly on its failure to match Da Vinci Code–level sales (81 million copies worldwide). Brown’s five years of research are boiled down to half a season’s worth of 24 — twelve hours in the life of our conspiracy-minded anti-Christian hero. “Robert Langdon’s life clearly moves a lot faster than mine,” Brown said in a statement. Random House expects copies to move even faster, announcing a record-high first printing of 5 million copies. Which means if the Greatest Sequel of All Time disappoints, the greatest layoffs of all time are sure to follow. [NYT]

Random House Finally Exhales