Bookselling and publishing

The fourteenth entry is la nouveauté, and an English reader who reaches for the word that looks like it will land on the wrong shelf. In French the noun sits at the centre of the trade: les nouveautés de la rentrée are the autumn list, le rayon nouveautés is the table by the door, and the sentence on this page says only that such a book keeps the window for a few weeks. It is the ordinary noun for newness as well, since la nouveauté d’un procédé is simply the fact that nothing like it existed before. « Novelty » began in that same place and then drifted downwards. It now carries a faint smell of the fairground: a novelty is a trinket, and « novelty socks », « a novelty act » and « novelty value » all say that the thing is worth something only until the surprise wears off. Nothing of the sort clings to la nouveauté, which is why the English trade says « a new release », « a new title » or « the frontlist », and keeps « novelty » for what is sold beside the cash desk.