Everything is happening very quickly: two weeks ago, we were talking about the incessant movements in the essay charts, a week ago we were talking to you about the sudden entries of the novelist Didier Van Cauwelaert (The Insolence of MiraclesPlon) and the Franco-Israeli journalist Charles Enderlin (Israel. The agony of a democracy) and the “tumble” of “our” politicians Nicolas Sarkozy, Edouard Philippe and Alain Juppé. And now, as soon as their works are published, Thomas Pesquet and Frédéric Lenoir arrive. They are not about to give up their place as their capital of sympathy and notoriety is high. Thomas Pesquet, therefore, the favorite astronaut and second favorite personality of the French, takes the first step of the podium with My life without gravity (Flammarion). In this autobiography, Pesquet tells, says the publisher, how he went from his native Normandy to the shooting ranges of Baikonur and Cape Canaveral… Enough to make many teenagers dream.
As for Frédéric Lenoir, the star sociologist and philosopher since the 2000s, he wants to reassure readers by recalling in L‘Odyssey of the sacred (Albin Michel) that man is the only animal that seeks to give meaning to his life. Something to satisfy the worried. He too wants to give meaning to his life: the banker Matthieu Pigasse, who explains how capitalism is a system “running out of steam”, traces a new economic and financial path in The Light of Chaos (L’Observatoire), and takes 16th place in the list.
And now, a quick look at the fiction side. Where we observe, like every week, the emergence of new voices from romance and fantastic literature, in this case, the Americans Ana Huang (Twisted Love. Volume IHugo Roman) and Holly Black (The heir betrayed, Ragot). Although he lives in New York, the 4th applicant of the week (ahead of Jo Nesbo) is indeed French. You recognized it, of course, it is Marc Levy, who publishes The Symphony of Monsters (Robert Laffont/Versilio). This novel, which is inspired by the kidnapping of Ukrainian children by Russian troops to take them to re-education centers, has already caused a lot of noise, particularly, one imagines, in Moscow. This is why the author announced that he wanted to distribute it free of charge on the Internet in Russian. An initiative all the more laudable as the novelist is very popular in Russia.