ErnieY wrote:The French booksellers association, Syndicat de la Librairie Française (SLF), has vowed to sue all internet retailers offering free book delivery in France, after winning a court battle against Alapage. Bougerol alleges that online booksellers are trying to drive small, independent, bricks-and-mortar stores out of the market. The court of appeal order shows "that the fox can no longer enter the chicken coop", he said.
I am not speechless ... I am disappointed. Speaking to some of our French friends, who are mostly retired, predominately well-educated and clearly not short of money, they are quite openly astonished at how many books we have in our very small house. At the point when I explain that we gave away or sold most of our books when we sold our large UK home they are become open-mouthed with amazement saying - but however did you afford to own so many books? The answer is not surprising - well not to a British resident anyway - we either bought them new - at a discount, secondhand - at a reasonable price or very cheaply at auctions or even swapped them with friends.
I am genuinely horrified at how few books I see in French homes and cannot help but feel that if the Lang Law were to be repealed if would have beneficial, rather than detrimental, effects.
Having stuck my head above the parapet ...
Sue
But thanks to the French law it is far easier to find decent bookshops, with a wide range of books, in relatively small towns.
However the Booksellers are probably fighting a losing battle on the postage issue. The likes of Amazon will quite happily decamp to the UK or elsewhere and supply their French customers that way, outside the reach of the French courts.
The high cost of French books is largely due to the high cost of printing books in what is, a relatively minor language in terms of volume sold. This means shorter print runs and higher unit costs.
Is there no potential for making a 'club' and posting free to members?
I do my best to support my local bookshop but yesterday I went to order the Carl Bernstein book on Hilary Clinton, bookshop £25, Amazon price £15. !
Catalpa wrote:I love books and I love the fact that in this electronic age, book-in-the-hand readership is increasing. As I've also said on another thread, the cost of books in France horrifies me. I think books make you rich; you should not have to be rich to buy lots of books.
I agree.
I must also add that the vast majority of our books in the UK were not fiction but beautiful tomes about art, literature, history, this and that; anything really that seemed interesting enough to buy, read and keep to refer to later. Having tried to accumulate the same here I find I am struggling as the books just cost sooo much - even in the secondhand bookshops. And if you want to browse it can be difficult as many of the new books are shrink wrapped, with not even at unwrapped example to peek at.
In the UK if I wanted to read fiction then I visited the library, or bought (paperbacks) from Tesco online etc. Here the library is stocked with predominately older books. On the new side there are lots of CDs, DVDs and magazines.
Regarding the diversity of bookshops, mentioned in another post; where we live in 56 these are often shabby and poorly stocked or bright and glitzy with a plastic air about them. One large bookshop has just closed down due to falling trade. And this is in a University town - I find it a sad situation.
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