You, Too, Can Write a Bestseller

Dan Brown, who is to history what Rasputin was to anti-coagulant therapy, has a new book out. But you knew that. Everyone knew that. Because it sold a million trillion copies in four minutes. It’s called The Lost Symbol and marks the return of Robert Langdon, symbologist (a degree now available online from the University of Phoenix), detective, and former star of Bosom Buddies .

Unlike Angels and Demons and The Da Vinci Code, the purveyors of this week’s conspiracy are not Catholic prelates but the Masons. No, not Jackie and Perry, but the 33-degree kinda Masons. It seems that Washington, D.C. is rife with Masonic symbols—from the architecture to the iconography to the city’s very grid—symbols that encode secrets that belie myths about who truly is in control of our nation’s capital, which was designed to reveal ancient mysteries that would—oh, whatever. Brown gets everything wrong , of course, but would we expect anything less, I mean more, from our author?

Anyway, Slate has this nifty ” Interactive Dan Brown Sequel Generator ” that will enable you to beat DB to the bestseller lists next time around.

I plugged in “Buenos Aires” and “Mounties” and discovered I had a hidden talent that is best kept hidden.

(This does remind me of those “Draw This Pirate” vocational art schools that used to be advertised on matchbook covers many moons ago. Not many people know this, but Picasso got his start in just that way. If you don’t believe me, wait until Dan Brown’s next novel, The Secret of the Sad Spanish Clown .)