Bring back the book launch!
It’s that time of year when the local librairie-papeterie in your French holiday village is full of signs for la rentrée and English newspapers carry ads for gel pens and shoes with Velcro fastenings. I used to love this season as a schoolboy – discovering if I’d made the under-13 football training squad. For the past 40 years, though, September has been for me a different season: the time of the publishers’ launch party. These used to be lavish affairs, held in a hotel or gallery with themed drinks and food, the whole thing fizzing with romantic possibilities. In 2001 we had a memorable do for my American novel On
