"The new Ishiguro should be successful": bookstores also prepare for the start of the school year

Nicolas Feldmann, edited by Manon FOssat 6:18 p.m., August 19, 2021

REPORTAGE

It's the literary season and this year 500 titles are candidates for the autumn prize.

So after long months marked by the coronavirus pandemic, bookstores are preparing for the return of readers.

This is particularly the case in this shop in the 15th arrondissement of Paris.

"It's the big surprise" rejoices its manager, Florence, when opening the first box, at the top of the pile.  

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For her, it's a little Christmas before the hour.

His gifts are these new back-to-school titles, still in plastic.

"There is the new Ishiguro. It is a book that should be enormously successful. I think what will also work is the Philippe Jaenada, and then there is still going to be a book by Vargas Llosa, which was a Nobel Prize, ”says the bookstore. 

+ 20% in sales compared to 2019

In the depths of August, Philippine is one of the few customers of the day. She is looking for a book for the end of her vacation. "It's to decompress a little and forget the climatic context and the horrible things happening at the moment," says the young woman who admits to having returned to reading thanks to the confinements. "I read a lot more because I had a lot more time," she still admits.

In the bookstore "The Art of Joy", sales soared in 2020 with + 20% recorded compared to the previous year. But from there to say that the literary re-entry will surf on these good figures, Florence the bookseller in doubt. "Now that the cinemas, museums and exhibitions have reopened, obviously we have a little less people. Things are inevitably balanced again in society at the cultural level," she notes. A return "to the life of before", summarizes the latter, which consoles itself elsewhere: this return will also be an opportunity for her to resume in September the meetings between the public and the authors.