Dan Brown's Origin makes a strong start in UK bookshops

Although not quite the sensation of previous Robert Langdon thrillers, The Da Vinci Code author’s latest mystery sold 100,000 copies in its first week

Dan Brown’s mastery of something like a code for bestsellers has returned to cheer UK booksellers, with more than 100,000 copies of his latest thriller, Origin, sold in the first five days after publication last Tuesday. But while retailers pronounced themselves delighted, there were some indications that his hold on British readers is not quite as sure as it once was – with these figures adding up to only a fifth of the initial success of 2009’s The Lost Symbol.

According to Nielsen BookScan, Origin had amassed 100,095 sales by Saturday. Brown’s publisher, Transworld, said this makes it the fastest-selling original fiction title in the UK since Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman in 2015, which sold 168,455 print copies in its first five days. But the Bookseller pointed out that Origin’s first week UK sales were half those of Inferno, which sold 228,961 copies in its first week in 2013, with Inferno’s sales half those of The Lost Symbol, which sold 551,000 print copies in its first week in 2009.

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