Interesting article from Edward Champion on Michael Hyatt’s recent Book Review Blogger Program, which gives people free books from Thomas Nelson Publishing in exchange for writing a 200+ word review: There’s no such thing as a free book. Champion argues that the program is inherently flawed:

While Hyatt’s marketing strategy appears to have yielded results, there remains the more troubling question of what this means for the blogosphere. Will Thomas Nelson stop sending books to those who write negative reviews? Will the publisher demand 400-word reviews a few months from now? Will other publishers begin setting more extraordinary terms for hotter titles? And, most importantly, will the blogosphere ever understand that surrendering to marketing forces simply isn’t a substitute for journalistic integrity?

Personally, I’m confused about why this is a big deal. Hyatt doesn’t require that reviews are positive. Instead, he says that reviews can be “positive, negative, or somewhere in between.” Don’t journalists get free books all the time for writing reviews? Why is this any different?

The Guardian is reporting that a gloomy autumn is on the way for French writing.

Avid readers across France are gearing up for “la rentrée littéraire”, the deluge of new novels that hits the country every August in anticipation of France’s autumn swarm of literary prizes. But this year’s rentrée strikes a sombre tone, and brings a halt to a seemingly unstoppable trend with a marked fall in the number of this year’s new titles.

Here are a few examples of what’s to come (from the article):

• Régis Jauffret’s recounting of a suicide in Lacrimosa.
• Valentine Goby’s novel about abortion Qui touche a mon corps je le tue (Touch Me and I’ll Kill You).
• Emmanuelle Pagano’s Les mains gamines (Innocent Hands) tackles the story of girl abused by her classmates.
• Mathieu Riboulet’s L’amant des morts (Lover of the Dead) confronts the Aids epidemic of the 1990s with the story of a man who sleeps with his own father.
• Tristan Garcia’s La meilleure part des hommes (The best of man), a novel which the author describes as a “faithful record” of the “betrayals of human existence, a portrait of the worst of mankind and - in negative - the best”.

I understand that good novels are not necessarily happy — in fact, I’d prefer otherwise — but I have to admit these don’t seem like ones you’d want to read when you’re alone on your Birthday.

“These books are fairly dark, very depressing - a bit like France,” said Vincy Thomas of Livres Hebdo. “There is a ‘grande malaise’, a sort of depression, in France at the moment. This is not a joyful country; when you think of France, you don’t think of a party country. The social reality in France is a real concern about the future and this is reflected in the books.” Aurélie Delfly, of one of France’s largest publishers Gallimard, agreed. “We aren’t very happy in France, and that is being felt in the subjects of the literature produced.”