Book News
“Lost Symbol” to launch hardcover, e-book at same time.
E-book readers can relax: The electronic edition of Dan Brown’s “The Lost Symbol” is coming out on the same day as the hardcover.
Doubleday announced in April that Brown’s first novel since “The Da Vinci Code” was coming out Sept. 15, but had hesitated to say when the e-book would be released, leading to speculation that the publisher was concerned that digital sales, a quickly rising market, would cut into purchases of the more expensive hardcover.
But in a recent statement, Doubleday spokeswoman Suzanne Herz said the e-book would be available on Sept. 15 and cited concerns not about sales, but about “security and logistical issues,” since resolved. The book has an announced first printing of 5 million copies and is under embargo until its publication date. The Associated Press
First Lines
Desert, by J.M.G. Le Clezio
They appeared as if in a dream at the top of the dune, half-hidden in the cloud of sand rising from their steps. Slowly, they made their way down into the valley, following the almost invisible trail. At the head of the caravan were the men, wrapped in their woolen cloaks, their faces masked by the blue veil. Two or three dromedaries walked with them, followed by the goats and sheep that the young boys prodded onward. The women brought up the rear. They were bulky shapes, lumbering under heavy cloaks, and the skin of their arms and foreheads looked even darker in the indigo cloth.
They walked noiselessly in the sand, not watching where they were going. The wind blew relentlessly, the desert wind, hot in the daytime, cold at night. The sand swirled around them, between the legs of the camels, lashing the faces of the women, who pulled the blue veils down over their eyes. The young children ran about, the babies cried, rolled up in the blue cloth on their mothers’ backs. The camels growled, sneezed. No one knew where the caravan was going.
The sun was still high in the stark sky, sounds and smells were swept away on the wind. Sweat trickled slowly down the faces of the travelers; the dark skin on their cheeks, on their arms and legs was tinted with indigo. The blue tattoos on the women’s foreheads looked like shiny little beetles. Their black eyes, like drops of molten metal, hardly seeing the immense stretch of sand, searched for signs of the trail in the rolling dunes.
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Publishers Weekly
