Brown's latest breaks record

       The latest novel from The Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown,The Lost Symbol , broke one-day sales records, its publisher and booksellers said.
       Readers snapped up over 1 million hardcover copies across the US, Canada and the UK after it was released on Tuesday, said publisher Knopf Doubleday, a division of Random House.
       "We are seeing historic, recordbreaking sales across all types of our accounts in North America for The Lost Symbol ," said Sonny Mehta, editor in chief of Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Amazon.com, the world's largest online retailer, called the book its bestselling first-day adult fiction title ever,including pre-orders.
       The success of Mr Brown's latest is a boost to publisher Knopf Doubleday and booksellers, which have endured sliding sales in the midst of the recession.Booksellers have anxiously awaited a popular title that will resonate with readers and fuel the same sort of frenzy seen earlier this decade with the Harry Potter series, from author J.K. Rowling.
       But the $25 billion US high street book market has wallowed in a slump in recent years as more readers make their purchases online, or forego books altogether for online games and other forms of media and entertainment. Now,digital books and electronic reading devices such as Amazon's Kindle or Sony's Reader are seen as avenues of growth and sources of competition for traditional media, and publishers and booksellers are scrambling to respond.
       The highly anticipated book from Mr Brown comes six years after the release of The Da Vinci Code . It continues the adventures of Harvard professor Robert Langdon and is set in the secret world of Freemasons in Washington D.C.
       The Da Vinci Code sold 80 million copies worldwide. It was made into a film starring Tom Hanks that grossed more than $758 million.