Best-selling French novelists, 2011

       Time again for one my favorite annual features: Le Figaro presents Les dix romanciers français qui vendent le plus -- i.e. the ten French-writing novelists whose books (entire output, not a specific title) sold the most copies in 2011. (See and compare to my mention last year.)
       Guillaume Musso surprisingly -- if barely -- displaced perennial best-selling-man Marc Levy (though he didn't quite reach Levy's sales-total from last year), while the biggest surprise is perennial top-tenner -- and last year's fourth-bestselling author -- Anna Gavalda having fallen completely out of the ranks. (I'd say it's not surprising, given what she writes -- see, for example, my review of her French Leave (UK title: Breaking Away) --, but given some of the others who do make the list ... well, she at least can actually pass as a writer.)

       In 2011, the top five were:

1. Guillaume Musso, 1,567,500 copies sold (a nice increase from his third-place, 1,116,000-copy finish last year)
2. Marc Levy, 1,509,000 copies sold
3. Katherine Pancol, 1,213,000 copies sold (down slightly from her 1,357,000-copy second place finish last year -- not that her continuing success seems to have helped get her a translation deal yet)
4. David Foenkinos -- coming out of nowhere (well, that film version of Delicacy is what did the trick), with an astonishing 967,000 copies sold
5. Fred Vargas, 790,500 copies sold

       Amélie Nothomb scraped in at number nine -- one position better than in 2010, but with only 429,500 copies of her books sold in 2011, compared to 492,000 in 2010. Le Figaro note the inexorable downward trend -- despite the additional title added to her stock every year, which should help pad her total -- suggesting that: "Le public montre des signes de lassitude".
       Also somewhat of a surprise: Delphine de Vigan came in seventh, with 519,500 copies sold. Her Underground Time appeared in English last year, but I couldn't stomach it.