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Bestselling author Dan Brown has told BBC Breakfast he gets "kicked around" by UK critics more than those in other countries.
Speaking this morning (20th May) during his first appearance to support the publication of his latest book, Inferno, Brown said he always sets out to "write the book that I would want
to read . . . I set out to write a book that is to my taste, and apparently a lot of other people share my taste, they like to read the types of books that I like to read."
He added: "Some of your critics here are not those people, apparently, but you know, life goes on . . . The books, across my country and elsewhere internationally, do get much better reviews than they do in the UK. It seems somehow to be sport to kick me around a bit."
Brown also confirmed that he gets up each day at 4 a.m. to start work, finding it more productive to work when there is "nobody to talk to". He said that immersing himself in the world of Dante's Inferno meant he had "some very unpleasant dreams" when writing the book, with the opening scene, where the main character Robert Langdon is waking from a nightmare, inspired by his own experiences.
He said: "For me, there is a very close tie between the dream state, when your mind is creating something out of nothing, and the writing state, when your mind is creating something out of nothing."
Brown will be speaking at the Dublin Writers' Festival tonight. Tomorrow (Tuesday 21st) he will be on Simon Mayo's BBC Radio 2 Drivetime show and interviewed by Mark Lawson on BBC Radio 4's arts programme "Front Row", with his only live UK event taking place later that day at the Freemasons Hall in central London. Tickets have not yet sold out for the event, which is hosted by Waterstones.
The UK critics' verdict on Inferno thus far has included: "bilge, but one hell of a page turner" from the Daily Mail; the Daily Telegraph saying Brown's "ambition wildly exceeds his ability"; and the Guardian describing the book as being "engineered with miraculous efficiency, a tasty cocktail of high culture and low thrills".