Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol sold over half a million copies in first week of UK sales, making it the fastest-selling adult book of all timeIn picture.

Michelle Pauli writing in the guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 22 September 2009

Dan Brown has achieved record-breaking first week sales with The Lost Symbol, according to the official sales figures from Nielsen BookScan this afternoon.
The novel, Brown's first since The Da Vinci Code, has sold well over 550,000 copies in the UK alone since it went on sale at one minute past midnight on Tuesday 15 September, making it the fastest-selling adult book of all time. So far it has earned Brown and his publishers, Random House, nearly £4.6m.
The Lost Symbol, which has received mixed reviews, had already smashed first day sales records, selling well over 1m copies in the US, UK and Canada in its first 24 hours in the shops. Waterstone's said that the book was its fastest selling adult novel of all time in both hardback and ebook versions, while an unabridged audio download of The Lost Symbol - which runs to over 17 hours - also became the book chain's fastest selling audio download ever.

Brown has also already beaten the previous hardback adult novel sales record, which was set by Thomas Harris's Hannibal, which sold 299,000 copies over its lifetime, but remains eclipsed by JK Rowling whose final Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows sold 2,632,685 copies across its adult and children's editions in its first 24 hours on sale in July 2007.

"Since we've been measuring book sales, JK Rowling is unbeatable. This is not just due to the incredible popularity of Harry Potter but also because the books appeal to both adults and children so that is a much larger market. However, looking just at the adult fiction market, Dan Brown is a giant as the next biggest single week seller was Thomas Harris with sales of 54, 191," said Andre Breedt, research and development analyst at Nielsen BookScan.
There is more at The Guardian.