Comments on: http://www.dystel.com/blog/2012/06/7786/ Mon, 26 Jun 2017 15:15:14 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.15 By: D. C. DaCosta http://www.dystel.com/blog/2012/06/7786/comment-page-1/#comment-34580 Fri, 29 Jun 2012 12:40:34 +0000 http://www.dystel.com/?p=7786#comment-34580 Lynn-I love that last comment!

I find this article to be heartening news.

When I was a student in France in the ’80s, the French were unashamed (if not secretly proud) of not being a nation of readers (except for those who followed the “bandes desinees” — pre-anime comics for grownups). Of course, in those days the sales tax on books was the same as on other “luxury” goods — 33%.

]]> By: Lynn http://www.dystel.com/blog/2012/06/7786/comment-page-1/#comment-34579 Thu, 28 Jun 2012 23:39:58 +0000 http://www.dystel.com/?p=7786#comment-34579 We are definitely book lovers here in France and I’m not talking about e-books! Every year hundreds of books are translated into French from every language around the world. You can find all sorts of books (from Mongolia, Iceland, Turkey or Cambodia to name a few) and not just the classics or bestsellers and for a country that is smaller than the state of Texas that’s saying a lot.

As Geoffrey Cottrell said, “In America only the successful writer is important, in France all writers are important, in England no writer is important, and in Australia you have to explain what a writer is.” I’m not too sure about the second half of that quote, but the first half rings true about the US and France.

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