Extraordinaire!

This was the queue this afternoon to get into the book fair at Brive la Gaillarde. I climbed the town's lighthouse (we're 300 miles from the sea - don't ask) to try to get them all in. But I couldn't. The line extended a long way out of frame at both sides, and there were already about 100,000 people inside. Some of these poor souls would be standing in the rain for up to two hours.

Inside there was only what I can describe as a frenzy of book-buying. I sold more books in a single morning than I would normally sell over the whole weekend. Thousands of euros worth of books - and there are literally hundreds of authors here. Millions must have been changing hands. There will be a quarter of a million people or more through the halls by Sunday evening. I think I might just have witnessed an end to the recession.