Nicolas Carreau, edited by Gauthier Delomez 07:20, July 03, 2022
The start of the school year in September and January are great literary moments each year, but the start of the summer holidays is also important for the book sector.
At the microphone of Europe 1, a Parisian bookseller takes stock of summer requests and the very definition of the "summer book".
What do the French read during the summer holidays?
Beach books, summer novels?
In literature, if there are two great publishing moments in the year, between the start of the school year in September with the big prizes and the 500 novels that come out, and the start of the school year in January when we often find the heavyweights, the ummer is no exception when it comes to bookstores.
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It is even a challenge for Stanislas Rigot, from the Lamartine bookstore in Paris.
"There are a lot of summer books because the month of July is a month when there are a lot of requests", he explains at the microphone of Europe 1.
July, "one of the key months in literature"
The Parisian bookseller continues: "You have people who read a book all year round, others who read only during the holidays and those who read a lot of books in the year and who will read even more during the holidays."
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However, there is an unknown: what is called "summer book", or "beach book"?
If the expression may seem contemptuous, it actually means much more than that.
"We are very, very far from summing up the summer book to the good big machine, sympatoche, and I want a Patterson, a romance ... It's much more complicated than that", specifies the bookseller, for whom the July "is one of the key months for literature at the bookstore".
"We reach quantities which, without reaching those of the literary season, are still very impressive."
So beach books or summer novels, whatever the French read, more than 60% say they take at least one book with them on vacation.