Paris
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix became the first book printed in English to reach the top of France’s best-seller list, with 41,000 copies sold in two weeks. Many customers at one Paris bookshop did not speak a word of English, but they snapped up the teenage wizard’s latest adventures anyway. “I’ve never seen anything like that,” said bookseller Ruth Baxter. A French translation is due in December, but the hype surrounding the English version’s release was too much for fans to resist, said Sophie Martin, a French pollster. “There was so much curiosity,” she said.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
NCHIs: the controversy over non-crime hate incidentsThe Explainer Is the policing of non-crime hate incidents an Orwellian outrage or an essential tool of modern law enforcement?
-
Islamic State: the terror group's second actTalking Point Isis has carried out almost 700 attacks in Syria over the past year, according to one estimate
-
Codeword: January 12, 2025The Week's daily codeword puzzle
