la rentree

Here in France there exists a social phenomenon called la rentrée every year after summer holidays. Bear in mind that most people vacation five weeks out of the year and most often in the month of August. Paris becomes a ghost town to Parisians and a monument theme park to tourists.

As the sun sets on summer and September begins, la rentree is all there is to talk about, read about, hear about or think about. There's la rentree scolaire with children going back to school, la rentree politique when politicians finally come back to work. There's la rentree litteraire, concerning yours truly, where orders come pouring in and bookstore shelves are once more packed to the bursting point with the latest and greatest. 683 new books have come out this year in France alone. Since we're an American-French bookstore, we order from US and UK publishers as well, making la rentree litteraire a formidable beast.

Lots of frazzled parents and their children looking for serious school books with long titles involving codes and ancronymes - no small feat for the foreigner. When a customer starts in on the codes, it's like they are suddenly speaking in alien tongues. This is especially true over the phone when I don't have the advantage of a crumply list dug out of an overcharged purse with chicken scratch in pencil and a coffee stain.

Aside from the scholastic books on the list it is also time to order the French literature for kids. Les Lettres de Mon Moulin by Alphonse Daudet. I am slowly but surely learning my way around the French children's literature. Having not spent my childhood in France it has been a challenge at times to convey confidence in my bookselling where French literature is concerned. I read French books in college but somehow I doubt Rhinoceros or Waiting for Godot will be of much service to me in the kids lit dept.