Who says new year necessarily says novelties! And we barely had time to devour all the books that flourished last September that already our eyes are attracted by new covers, evocative titles … So what to read in 2017? Justfocus has prepared a small cocktail of discoveries!
517 new titles entered the literary market at the beginning of January (compared to 476 last year, at the same time) including 337 French novels and 180 foreign novels translated (figures: Livres Hebdo). A year that promises to be particularly rich and exciting, we wish you beautiful and filled with literary discoveries!
Aftermath
Gallimard starts the year in style, with the return of Daniel Pennac ! He published Le cas Malaussène, 1, Ils m'ont menti with his historical publisher, eighteen long years after the publication of Le Bonheur des ogres. As you can see, his new book is part of the Malaussène saga, to the delight of fans of book series. 5 million copies of his saga have been sold since the creation of the character of Benjamin Malaussène in 1985. Daniel Pennac flirts with the zeitgeist and explores the paradoxes of an era where fiction and reality intertwine.
One of the most anticipated sequels of this beginning of the year is obviously The one who flees and the one who remains, volume III of The prodigious friend of the mysterious Elena Ferrante (article to come). You will have plenty of time to find our two favorite heroines of the moment, Lila and Elena, in the continuation of the Neapolitan saga, also published by Gallimard, from January 3, 2017.
Author of the cult novel Shantaram which has sold more than 5 million copies worldwide, Gregory David Roberts, the former Australian taulard also offers the continuation of this story of violence and redemption in The shadow of the mountain, published by Flammarion. 900 pages, or a good reason to stay warm on your couch…
Slap books
If you are more of the type to love books that slap you, we advise you to let yourself be tempted by the second novel of the very promising Pierre Adrian. At just 25 years old, he publishes Des âmes simples aux Équateurs Littérature, today, January 5. In his new story, he goes to meet a small fraternity of men in the monastery of Notre-Dame de Sarrance, deep in the Aspe Valley. If you have ever read the Heptaméron of Marguerite de Navarre, it is on this mystical commune that she wrote her unfinished collection of tales. This initiatory story allows the young writer to reveal a little more about his style that had already charmed the most difficult of literary critics.
During Turkey's coup attempt last July, Asli Erdogan, a local author, protested in a pro-Kurdish newspaper about the limits of freedom of opinion. She then finds herself imprisoned and faces a conviction that is as unfounded as it is unacceptable. Recently, we learned that she had been the victim of a poisoning attempt. Actes Sud has gathered in Le silence même n'est plus à toi, about thirty texts by Asli Erdogan, including some of the chronicles that earned him this accusation. To discover in all good bookstores from January 4th.
With JC Lattès, Grégoire Delacourt publishes on January 2nd his new novel (the third) Danser au bord de l'abîme. In 2012, his book The List of My Desires, had quickly become a bestseller with more than 440,000 copies sold and 22 translations in different countries, and was soon adapted to the screen. We then discovered Mathilde Seigner , in the role of Jo, who had been captivated by the reading of Belle du Seigneur (Albert Cohen). In his latest book, it is to Flaubert and his Bovary that Delacourt pays tribute since his heroine, named Emma, decides to abandon her children and her husband after falling in love with Alexandre, met by pure chance in a brewery. Another virtuoso novel for Grégoire Delacourt, which thanks to the power of desire highlights the fragility of existence.
Expected adaptations
In 1985, published by P.O.The Pain of Marguerite Duras appeared, a book that looks more like a diary, found years later by the writer who does not remember having written it. La Douleur brings together notes taken by the young Duras during the Second World War, her entry into the Resistance with François Mitterrand, the arrest of her husband, Robert Antelme, deported to Buchenwald (an experience he recounted in The Human Species), the pain of waiting… The director Emmanuel Finkiel decided to bring this little literary nugget to the screen and filming began in the summer of 2016 in the streets of Paris. Mélanie Thierry plays Marguerite Duras, and Benoit Magimel, at her side, will play the writer's husband. We also find Benjamin Biolay in the cast of this film, and we can't wait to discover even the trailer!
The last literary project we wanted to talk to you about will 
not see the light of day until 2018, but it leaves you a little margin to devour According to a true story, the latest novel by Delphine de Vigan. Rewarded in 2015 by the prestigious Renaudot prize but also by the Goncourt des lycéens and largely influenced by Stephen King's Misery , this novel already developed a history of the most Polanskian by reading.Written in the first person, this false autofiction narrates the paranoid anxiety of a novelist, who receives threatening anonymous letters, while a more than intrusive reader disrupts the course of her already turbulent daily life. Troubled femininity, reality/fiction ambivalence (as the title suggests) and false pretenses around artistic creation… So many crossed themes that could only seduce Roman Polanski, who should direct Emmanuelle Seigner, once again, between hallucination and mental vertigo.
From certain words, from certain looks, we do not heal. Despite the passage of time, despite the sweetness of other words and other looks.
That's it, that should be enough for the beginning of the year, but we will not fail to keep you informed of all the literary novelties to come in 2017! Another great year from the entire Justfocus team.
