The Lost Symbol

Right, before Da Vinci.

This is followed by the explosion of The Da Vinci Code in 2003, then The Lost Symbol in 2009, Inferno in 2013, Origin in 2017, and the franchise is still expanding with a new installment, The Secret of Secrets, scheduled for 2025.

Sustaining a single literary protagonist at the top of the bestseller list for a quarter of a century is an anomaly in modern publishing.

It's unheard of.

It was the commodification of the spiritual journey.

And speaking of commodification, we have to talk about the absolute commercial titan of 2009, Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol.

A juggernaut.

This is the third installment in the Robert Langdon series following the world-breaking success of Angels and Demons and The Da Vinci Code.

Once we found ourselves, the literature projected our darkest fears about exploiting the youth under the horrifying dystopias of Never Let Me Go and The Hunger Games.

And finally, we witnessed the publishing industry mutate into a participatory digital behemoth

Participating in massive digitally enhanced global fandoms with Deathly Hallows, we saw the commodification of the self in Eat Pray Love, and the algorithmic pacing of The Lost Symbol

We really did see a single decade take us from one extreme to the other

...

I read, um, Dan Brown, The Lost Symbol.

This we got at one of our Blind Date With a Book.

That's huge.

I don't know what's in anything higher, to be honest with you.

Um, I have seen interviews of people that show, like, the flat Earth and show [coughs] all this information that supposedly people know, and then you have Dan Brown's, uh, The Lost Symbol, which surrounds itself around Masonry.

Um, it's basically just, for the most part, out of all the people that I met there, I'd say like 98% of people are people who just were looking for friendship and charity, to be honest with you.

Most of the people who are low are actually really good people.

Where do you start? Where do you

start? Let's begin because the latest novel from Dan Brown, The Lost Symbol, is atop the New York Times bestseller list and probably will be for months to come.

There's already a movie that's been announced, which is no surprise.

Sure.

Except that might be a little bit more dangerous.

More dangerous, right.

I have read Dan Brown's novel, The Lost Symbol, and Freemasons are treated very well.

They are portrayed as noble defenders of a truth that will be revealed to mankind in order to save us when we're at our darkest hour, facing global extermination.