The French publishing industry still releases the bulk of their fiction lists between mid-August and the end of October (“la rentrée littéraire”) but this year’s crop of 676 novels will be 7 percent smaller than last year’s batch of 727 titles, according to magazine Livres Hebdos. Part of it, however, is that “French publishers looking to spread their publishing output throughout the year.” The magazine’s Vincy Thomas says: “These books are fairly dark, very depressing – a bit like France. There is a ‘grande malaise’, a sort of depression, in France at the moment. This is not a joyful country; […]
