Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol has "broken the stranglehold that celebrity autobiographies have held over December book sales in recent years to take the Christmas number one slot," the Guardian reported.
"This year there is very definitely a much stronger end-of-year Christmas fiction market," said André Breedt of Nielsen BookScan. "The autobiography and biography market overall peaked in 2007... and ever since then it has been slowing down."
The U.K.'s 2009 Christmas season top 10 list:
- The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown
- Guinness World Records 2010
- Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer
- Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
- The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
- Where's Stig? (TopGear)
- Handle with Care by Jodi Picoult
- Delia's Happy Christmas by Delia Smith
- Ooh! What a Lovely Pair by Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly
- My Shit Life So Far by Frankie Boyle