Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol sets one-day, adult fiction sales record and marks record-breaking day-one sales for Random House North America and U.K. One-day, global English-language sales well over 1 million copies.

Random House congratulates A.S. Byatt’s The Children’s Book for being shortlisted for the 2009 Man Booker Prize for Fiction.

Random House congratulates What the Nose Knows for being shortlisted for the Royal Society Prize for Science Books.

Bertelsmann’s €900 million cost-saving program impacts first-half results.

“Crown has lost a great storyteller, chronicler, and friend in Dominick Dunne, with whom we enjoyed a more than twenty-five year association that included five best-selling novels, two collections of essays, and a memoir. He was so excited about his forthcoming book and we are deeply saddened that he did not live to enjoy its publication. At the time Dominick died, the manuscript was in the final stages of editing, and is currently scheduled to come out in December.” – Tina Constable, VP, Publisher, Crown

In memoriam: Dominick Dunne.

Congratulations Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, recipients of the 2009 Dayton Literary Peace Prize for Lifetime Achievement and authors of Half the Sky.

In memoriam: Robert D. Novak.

Congratulations to David Anthony Durham, winner of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer at the 2009 Hugo Awards.

In memoriam: Budd Schulberg.