We were delighted to receive news about Dan Brown’s hugely anticipated
ORIGIN this October. An amusing aside is that Penguin-Random-house’s Transworld
Publishing Imprint have been Dan Brown’s British Publishers introducing Robert
Langdon to us well before Tom Hanks immortalised him on the silver screen.
Last year I heard that Penguin-Random-house’s Transworld
Publishing Imprint have brought Thriller writer Harlan
Coben to their stable. I have been a follower of Harlan
Coben for many years, and I recall an interesting exchange back in 2004 we
had that related to his own relationship with Dan Brown.
Ali Karim : Keeping on this topic, you were one of the first to
champion a little book called ‘The Da
Vinci Code’ by Dan Brown – which has been at the top of our book charts for
ages. Can you tell us a little about how you got involved with Dan Brown? And
what books should we be looking out for?
Harlan
Coben : It’s a long story and
coincidentally I just a call from my French publishers as Just One Look just came out there and is doing very well at No. 3
with ‘Da Vinci Code’ at No 1 and ‘Angels and Demons’ at No. 2. So I sent Dan an
email saying….laughing…. ‘Alright enough now!’….laughing….I hear the same thing
happened here in the UK when Just One
Look came out in paperback….The hardcover hit No. 1 but the paperback
didn’t because there were three Dan Brown books at No. 1, 2 and 3…laughing….I
think there was a three-for-two deal going on in some bookshop…laughing….Dan
and I actually went to college together…Amherst College….and he actually read
my stuff before I read his, this is going back some time. So his editor sent me
a copy of ‘Da Vinci Code’ in manuscript form, well before anyone had heard
about ‘Da Vinci Code’ – His previous books are now doing really well, but when
they were first published they didn’t do as well because perhaps they didn’t
get the publishing support or whatever, and so I read the manuscript and
thought it was a wonderful read, and I was happy to pass a review and blurb it.
I don’t think the success of ‘Da Vinci Code’ is a negative thing, I think that
it is a great thing in the publishing world when anything surprising happens
and any work that has people buying books is no bad thing so I have no problem
with the success of ‘Da Vinci Code’.
So with Origin due out on October 3rd 2017,
what has Dan Brown got in store for readers?
Robert
Langdon, Harvard professor of symbology and religious iconology, arrives at the
Guggenheim Museum Bilbao to attend the unveiling of a discovery that “will
change the face of science forever”. The evening’s host is his friend and
former student, Edmond Kirsch, a forty-year-old tech magnate whose dazzling inventions
and audacious predictions have made him a controversial figure around the
world. Tonight is to be no exception: he claims he will reveal an astonishing
scientific breakthrough to challenge the fundamentals of human existence.
But
Langdon and several hundred other guests are left reeling when the meticulously
orchestrated evening is blown apart before Kirsch’s precious discovery can be
revealed. With his life under threat, Langdon is forced into a desperate bid to
escape, along with the museum’s director, Ambra Vidal. Together they flee to
Barcelona on a perilous quest to locate a cryptic password that will unlock
Kirsch’s secret.
In
their path lie dark forces which will do anything to stop them. To evade a
tormented enemy who is one step ahead of them at every turn, Langdon and Vidal
must navigate labyrinthine passageways of hidden history and ancient religion.
On a trail marked only by enigmatic symbols and elusive modern art, Langdon and
Vidal uncover the clues that will bring them face-to-face with a world-shaking
truth that has remained buried – until now.
As imagery and symbolism is a key factor in Dan Brown’s
adventures of Robert Langdon, we were delighted to receive more information
from Alison Barrow from Transworld Publishing, so hot off the presses -
Following much online speculation about the
location, jacket and content of this eagerly awaited new thriller by global
publishing phenomenon Dan Brown, Transworld Publishers release the UK jacket
for ORIGIN this afternoon, 27th June 2017.
Since the September 2016 announcement of the
publication, excitement has been growing for the release of the new novel
featuring Brown’s unforgettable protagonist Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon,
and has had fans clamouring for more information. Now for the first time,
readers worldwide will discover the setting for the action as well as key
elements in the forthcoming thriller. Unfolding entirely in Spain — Madrid,
Barcelona, Seville, and Bilbao, the home of the Guggenheim Museum, ORIGIN
thrusts Langdon into the intersection of two of humankind’s most enduring
questions:
Where do we come from? Where are we going?
In keeping with his trademark style, Brown
interweaves codes, symbols, science, religion, history, art and architecture
with a decidedly fresh twist; the art is modern and the science taps into the
most advanced cutting edge technology available today. Transworld will publish
this stunningly inventive new novel from the world’s most popular thriller
writer as a Bantam Press hardback on October 3, 2017.
It will also be available as an ebook and an
audiobook from Penguin Random House Audio. ORIGIN will be published
simultaneously in the US and Canada by Doubleday with a U.S. Spanish language
published by Vintage Espanol.
There are more than 200 million copies of Dan
Brown’s books in print worldwide, and his novels have been translated into 56
languages.
Shots are
delighted to offer a 50% discount on pre-orders of ORIGIN by Dan Brown which can
be accessed from this link
and we have discounted paperback copies of Harlan Coben’s HOME in PB from our bookstore
HERE
More
information about the work of Dan Brown available HERE and Harlan Coben available HERE
