Culture

Title of Dan Brown's New Novel Revealed Elaborately, Easily via Hashtags

The author of The Da Vinci Code, The Lost Symbol, and Angels & Demons is at it again, filling the world with shadowy symbols and codes and not being very clear about anything. But if you don't figure it out in the end, don't worry: He'll tell you.

By Jen Doll
Saved Stories
This article is from the archive of our partner .

The author of The Da Vinci Code, The Lost Symbol, and Angels & Demons is at it again, filling the world with shadowy symbols and codes and not being very clear about anything, at least not on the surface, because that's the stuff of fiction! At least, that's fiction in the way of Dan Brown. It's up to you to figure things out, with the help of Harvard symbology professor/dubious heartthrob in a tweed jacket and turtleneck, good old courageous stalwart genius love interest Robert Langdon. If you don't figure it out in the end, don't worry: He'll tell you.

Dan Brown, who also has been known to wear a tweed jacket, possibly with a turtleneck, has a new book coming out in just a few months — May 14 to be exact — from Doubleday. And yet ... this is not just an ordinary, "Hey, guys, I have a book coming out, buy it!" routine. There is mystery. There is intrigue. You knew this wasn't going to be easy, right?

The book has no title. Or, rather, it does have a title, but the title was, until this morning, undisclosed. In said novel, writes Alison Flood of the Guardian, our pal Langdon, "will be adventuring through the 'heart of Europe," where he's "drawn into a harrowing world centred on one of history's most enduring and mysterious literary masterpieces." Oooh. Will there be self-flagellating albino monks and/or tattooed antiheroes? We do not know. What we do know is this: 

Dan Brown, and his publisher, are totally into social media! Thus, they decided to play a little game with readers to reveal the title of the book. "By posting on Facebook, or tweeting using the hashtag #DanBrownToday, readers' profile images will be added as a tile in the mosaic, with the title to become clear as more images are added," writes Flood. Turns out, though, all you really had to do was watch the Today Show, upon which this mosaic was being televised, to figure it out: "Through Facebook and tweeting the hashtag #DanBrownTODAY, viewers helped fill in a live mosaic that slowly revealed the book’s cover." 

Don't worry, though, figuring stuff out is fun. Prior to the big reveal there were great guesses!

Ultimately, as with any Dan Brown novel, the mystery had to be unlocked. And so it was.

Yes, the new book's title is Inferno. Brown said in a statement, "Although I studied Dante’s Inferno as a student, it wasn’t until recently, while researching in Florence, that I came to appreciate the enduring influence of Dante’s work on the modern world. With this new novel, I am excited to take readers on a journey deep into this mysterious realm…a landscape of codes, symbols, and more than a few secret passageways.”

Intrepid researchers may have found that the Kindle edition is already available for pre-order on Amazon, too! Robert Langdon/Dan Brown would be proud.

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.