France stages inaugural 'Reading Night'

France’s inaugural Reading Night on Saturday (14th January) was a “great success,” according to the culture ministry, which initiated and partially subsidised the event.

Some 1,500 entertainments or activities, which aimed to bring together booksellers, authors, publishers and libraries, were staged across the country. These included pyjama readings, literary cafés, concerts and walk-abouts, and attracted about 250,000 visitors, the ministry said.

The Librairie Les Nouveautés, a bookshop in central Paris, was one of the four stops on the culture minister Audrey Azoulay’s evening itinerary. The store organised a series of readings by 10 authors, including Véronique Ovaldé and Pierre Lemaitre, who won the Goncourt prize for Au Revoir Là-Haut (Goodbye, Up There) in 2013, bookshop owner Dominique Monin told The Bookseller.

Monin was sceptical about the initiative when Azoulay announced it last November, but he is now unreserved in his enthusiasm and hopes it will be a permanent fixture. About 250 people visited the bookshop during the evening, and all of them were thrilled, he said. Unexpected were the brisk sales for what was not intended to be a commercial event, he added. 

Another stop for Azoulay was the public reading library (Bibliothèque Publique d’Information, BPI) at the multidisciplinary Pompidou Centre, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year.

The municipal library at La Ferté Saint-Aubin, a rural town with a population of 7,000 near Orléans, organized a walk around the premises by torchlight. It was picked by the French trade publication Livres Hebdo as one of the 10 most original projects for Reading Night, and was a huge success, library director Catherine Pautigny said. Fifty-one adults and young people participated in the event, which included reading texts about libraries and librarians, covering books, exploring the library vault and searching for hidden volumes. Fifteen to 20 people were present throughout the evening, and all visitors left with a special bag, a bookmark and a nocturnal librarian’s diploma. “It showed how convivial a library can be, and how we need to be innovative and inventive if we are to mobilize the public,” Pautigny added.

More than 100 people visited the Gaspard Monge library in Beaune, Burgundy, which held it ninth quarterly "speedbooking" session. Launched in 2014 and inspired by speed dating, each participant has four minutes to present a book—usually a novel. Library director Sylvain Françonnet bangs a gong when the time is up, which creates “a certain hilarity,” he said. About 20 people took part this time, and confirmed that the presenter profile is getting younger. At the beginning, most were aged 40-plus, whereas more 20 to 30-year olds are now coming forward, Françonnet added.