Unsurprisingly, almost no surprise, in our rankings for the last week of December, that of last minute gifts. There we find some of the award-winners of the year, and above all, all those we’ve been talking to you about since this fourth quarter of 2024. It seems like it wasn’t time for discoveries.
It is therefore high time to give you some significant figures. Thus the 2024 Goncourt Prize, Kamel Daoud, whose novel Houris (Gallimard) has soared (as of December 29, according to Edistat) to some 388,000 copies, a very good score all in all. Renaudot Gaël Faye, for Jacaranda (Grasset), has nothing to be ashamed of either with 342,000 copies sold.
Honored with the Goncourt prize for high school students and the Goncourt prize for prisoners, the novelist Sandrine Collette, 4th in our ranking with Madelaine before dawn (Lattès) can boast 150,000 sales. As for Miguel Bonnefoy, the double winner of the Grand Prix de l’Académie française and the Femina Prize with The Jaguar’s Dream (Shore), he is on a par with Lady Collette. We will not forget Olivier Norek, winner of the Jean Giono prize and the Renaudot des lycéens, 7th in the list, including Winter Warriors is on the verge of crossing the 200,0000 mark. And Olivier Tournut, Quai des Orfèvres 2025 prize with Post Mortem (Fayard), which exceeds 90,000 copies sold. So much for the winners.
3836 AWARDS
© / The Express
To this list of lucky ones, we must also add a few best-seller regulars: Valérie Perrin who, with 262,000 copies sold of Tata (Albin Michel) does more than confirm the success of his previous novels, Change the flower water (2018), Three (2021) … Likewise, Mélissa Da Costa, author from the same publisher, is not unworthy with some 187,000 copies on the counter for Stand up.
Let’s stay in the lucky house on rue Huygens: Maxime Chattam (Prime Time), Philippe Collin (The Ritz Bartender), Thomas Schlesser (Mona’s Eyes) store dry with, respectively, 118,000, 266,000 and 325,000 copies! Of course, like every year the “polardeux” are present in our Top 20: Marc Levy (The Bookstore of Banned BooksRobert Laffont/Versilio, 135,000 copies since November 18), Guillaume Musso (someone elseCalmann-Lévy, 432,000 copies since March 5), Michel Bussi (The Assassins of the DawnLes Presses de la Cité, 100,000 copies since October 10) or even Harlan Coben (BewareBelfond, 95,000 since October 3).
Finally, we will mention the phenomenon of this end of year, the American Freida McFadden and The Maid Sees Everything (City) which exceeds 100,000 copies (while the first volume of its series, The Housekeepercounted at I have read more than 700,000 copies thanks to fantastic word of mouth!) Last but not leastwe promised you a little surprise (see the first line), it is the entry, more than deserved, of the latest novel by Fabrice Caro, Fort Alamo (Gallimard). No doubt, readers have good taste. And the tests, you ask me? Let’s save some ink for next week…
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