1.4 million budding Balzacs

No French home is complete without a manuscript waiting to be discovered, and an aspiring author about to embark on a wave of literary glory. According to a poll conducted by Figaro Littéraireand market research companyOpinionWay, one in three of France's citizens (32%) has already written or thought of writing a book. Three percent (or 1.4 million members of the French population) have already written several pages, and 400,000 have actually sent texts to publishers. And this is clearly a national syndrome, because "the phenomenon affects people in every category regardless of their sex, age, social standing, profession, or region," reports *Le Figaro Littéraire*. But what are they so eager to write about? The vast majority want to write about their own lives. Nine out of ten texts are, or are intended to be, autobiographical. But while they may be in love with writing, the French appear to have lost their appetite for reading. According to the poll, one in five respondents (19%) admitted that they had not read a book in the previous 12 months.