Here is The Bookseller version of the story:
Penguin has been employing "Harry Potter-style security measures" for a book it releases today [26th March], billing the secret non-fiction title as containing an "astonishing breakthrough" which explains the birth of Christianity for the first time.
The Sign: The Shroud of Turin and the Secret of the Resurrection by Cambridge art historian Thomas de Wesselow has been kept a closely guarded secret by Penguin, with only three staff at Penguin in the know about it until this year. C.e.o. Tom Weldon and Viking editorial director Joel Rickett acquired world rights through Philippa Harrison at Ed Victor.
The book tackles the question of how Christianity was born. The religion began when, after Jesus’ crucifixion, Jesus’ followers claimed to have seen him alive again. In The Sign, de Wesselow argues that it was the Turin Shroud, the cloths Jesus was wrapped in after his reurrection, which his followers saw, seeing the imprint of Jesus in the cloth and taking it as a sign of resurrection. Though the shroud has been assumed to be a fake created in medieval times, de Wesselow provides what the publisher describes as "conclusive evidence" that the shroud is authentic, based on the fact that the imprint of Jesus’ body is a negative image.
Penguin UK has ordered an initial print run of 25,000 hardbacks for the UK market, and 20,000 trade paperbacks for the international export market. It will also be available in e-book at an initial price of £9.99.
Dutton in the US will publish the title on 2nd April, . . .
[. . . ]
He added: "We wanted to get it out before Easter. The chains are backing it amazingly and putting it in incredible positions. There’s a mixed record for secret books in the trade—we’ve had to judge it slightly. We didn’t want to barrel out there with 100,000 copies and totally saturate things." . . .
Bookstores around New York opened at midnight for the latest Harry Potter book and customers camped on the sidewalk to be in the door before stocks ran out. I’m not expecting the same thing.
It will be available at Amazon on April 3rd. So will the Kindle version. It is already available at Amazon UK if you just can’t wait.
Full article: Penguin unveils secret book on Turin Shroud | The Bookseller
Frankly, I think the author’s principal premise has as much reality as “da Vinci photo shopped” it. Yet he authors of that disputable premise begin by destroying the Shroud is a “painted” fake premise. I await the Cambridge Shroud explanation. It will be necessary to sift the facts from the theory reported and see what of value is there.
However, don’t sneeze at the fact that a major publisher is giving a “Shroud is real” book real exposure. The door to renewed public understanding may be opening.
Unbelievable. And they want to get it out before EASTER? Why, because it’s so SPECIAL or because three idiots at Penguin want to SHOVE this trash in the FACES of all Christian Believers and make them CHOKE on it? Right in the midst of the most Holy of all Christian holidays?
This whole thing, every bit of it, could be labeled Blasphemy.
Annie,
Before you get too apoplectic check out the U-Tube. Pity the poor agnostic but don’t throw out the baby with the bath water. There is much in what he says that is useful.
//shroudofturin.wordpress.com/2012/03/27/sky-news-interview-with-thomas-de-wesselow/