Dr Nicholas Tate: Is the Death of Reading Inevitable?

In France, the September return to school – la rentrée – is always accompanied by la rentrée littéraire – the publication of large numbers of new books – as people look ahead not just to all the literary awards later in the autumn but to their own winter of evenings and weekends sitting curled up reading a new book. Or do they? This year, the rentrée edition of France’s conservative monthly magazine L’incorrect led with an article, ‘Is the death of the book inevitable?’, suggesting that reading may be the very last thing that many French people are likely to be doing.