Dan Brown's Lost Symbol: NYTimes Breaks Embargo

The Times did it again, they published a review of a book that was embargoed before publication date. Or did the publisher encourage it by imposing an embargo? The chance to break a story becomes irresistible, and so they went for it and published a review of Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol. Earlier this month they broke the embargo on the Kennedy memoir, True Compass, when they published a review nearly two weeks before publication date.

Now, they've jumped publication date by a day, but with a blockbuster that's sure to have a strict on sale date, every minute counts as customers line up to buy the next book by the author of The Da Vinci Code. The good news for Doubleday and readers is that Janet Maslin likes it:

Too many popular authors (Thomas Harris) have followed huge hits ("The Silence of the Lambs") with terrible embarrassments ("Hannibal"). Mr. Brown hasn't done that. Instead, he's bringing sexy back to a genre that had been left for dead.