Dan Brown's 'The Lost Symbol' is #1 on Amazon Bestseller List

The Lost Symbol goes on sale Tuesday, six years after The Da Vinci Code sold 80 million copies in 51 languages. The new book, which follows the further adventures of the Harvard symbologist, Robert Langdon, "remains so deeply under wraps that we've agreed to keep our stockpile under 24-hour guard in its own chain-link enclosure, with two locks requiring two separate people for entry," Amazon CEO Jeffrey Bezos wrote on the website last week.

Last Tuesday the "Today" program began a weeklong countdown to publication, with the host Matt Lauer revealing clues to the various locations that are featured in the book. Lauer is one of the very few people who have been allowed to read The Lost Symbol in advance, and that too only after signing an agreement not to reveal what is contained within it. He is scheduled to interview Brown in a segment to be broadcast on Tuesday, according to the New York Times.

Booksellers across the country are praying that the release of this book will facilitate more book-browsing and buying. "We're hoping the book drives people into the store, and once they're there they can buy a Dan Brown and maybe discover other good writers," Mitchell Kaplan, owner of Books & Books, tells the Miami Herald. "It's an exciting week for us."