What are French people reading in 2007? What place does reading occupy in their daily life? What are the flagship cultural events related to books? An investigation into a very French social phenomenon. 
Although a few years ago when the internet burst onto the scene, many predicted the "death of the book", it remains, despite some genuine worries, the top cultural product in France. It accounts for half the cultural purchases of households (51%), way ahead of DVDs and video films (20%), music CDs (15%) and video games (14%).In 2006, the French bought 494 million books, which is an average of 8 books per person. In that same year, the publishing industry brought out some 68,000 titles, half of them new works.
The start of the 2007 publishing season [1] set a new record. 727 French and foreign novels - a quarter of them first novels - and around 600 essays came out between August and October, half of them published by more than 90 different publishing houses. In terms of turnover, in 2006 publishing recorded a 1.7% rise over 2005, while the number of copies sold increased by 2.1%.
"There is a very marked tendency to write for publication in France, an indicator of a strong cultural output," explains Stéphane Billerey, sales director of Editions Plon. "It’s in our cultural genes! Here, we say that success is having had a child, planted a tree and written a book. The book is still an important place for discussing ideas. Politics in France has to go through books or it doesn’t exist." In fact in this 2007 election year, 150 political books were published in a period of a few months, some achieving record sales - of over 100,000 copies.
But in France, it is literature that still reigns supreme in publishing. With 20% of the market, novels - French and foreign - are most popular with readers, followed by children’s books (17%). Add in comic books - which can be very literary (Proust has been adapted as a comic strip) and account for 11% of sales - and almost half (48%) of total book purchases are "reading for pleasure" or fiction.
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