Dan Brown explores the human factor

Jennifer Cockerell, Reuters — Thu, 23 May 2013 00:01:00 +0200

Within the next three years we will all face “profound ethical decisions” about “what it means to be human”, bestselling novelist Dan Brown has warned. The writer was speaking about one of the themes of his latest thriller starring Harvard professor Robert Langdon, which is expected to top this week’s bestseller list. Brown, whose sales have already exceeded 200 million with his previous novels, told an audience of his fans at Freemason’s Hall in central London that he did not want to give away any of the plot of his latest page turner, Inferno, which was published a week ago. Instead, he said he would talk about some of the topics of his latest offering, which sees Langdon in a number of Italian cities and other European locations, as he tries to stop the spread of a deadly virus due to a plot by famous geneticist Bertrand Zobrist to rebalance the world’s rapidly expanding population. The novel, which takes inspiration from Dante’s Divine Comedy, sees Brown set out the case for population control (neo-eugenics), and he spoke of how the population of the planet has tripled in the past 85 years. One of the themes of the novel, he said, was the “rapidly growing philosophy called...

Harry Potter edition fetches £150,000

Jennifer Cockerell, PA — Wed, 22 May 2013 12:26:00 +0200

A first edition of the first Harry Potter book, personally annotated by JK Rowling, has sold for £150,000 at auction. The one-of-a-kind copy of Harry Potter & The Philosopher's Stone contains revealing commentary and 22 of the author's own original illustrations. The book, which was published in 1997 and went on to win Rowling worldwide fame, was sold to a telephone bidder at Sotheby’s in central London. Also going under the hammer at the First Editions, Second Thoughts auction was a copy of Roald Dahl's Matilda with new illustrations by Quentin Blake, which sold for £30,000, the second highest sale of the night. The auction saw lots from a total of 50 celebrated authors who had annotated, commented on or illustrated a first edition copy of one of their works. Other highlights included Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day, which sold for £18,000, Julian Barnes' Metroland, which went for £14,000 and Alan Bennett's The Uncommon Reader, which fetched £11,000. Others contributors included Margaret Atwood, Helen Fielding, Ian McEwan, Philip Pullman and Sir Tom Stoppard, with the night raising £439,200 for charity.

timesofmalta.com

Dan Brown explores the human factor

Harry Potter edition fetches £150,000