The Goncourt Academy announced on Tuesday, October 6, its second list of contenders for the prestigious Goncourt Literary Prize, reducing the field from sixteen to eight novels. The final four will be revealed on October 27, with the winner to be named on November 3. This is a critical time for the literary prize season, as bookstores face ongoing economic challenges. A study by Altares, released on July 16, showed that bookstore closures rose by 58 percent compared to the previous year, despite a slight decrease in overall retail failures—down 1 percent. The retail sector saw some resilience in areas like DIY, home goods, and clothing. Altares recorded 17,486 business failures in the second quarter of 2025, a 5.4 percent increase from the previous year. This number is nearly 40 percent higher than it was before the health crisis. Thierry Millon, head of studies at Altares, pointed out that the current economic weakness makes it difficult to see a significant drop in business failures. The National Publishing Syndicate (SNE) released a report on June 25, estimating that publishers' revenue would reach 2.88 billion euros in 2025, a 0.63 percent decline. Sales of books amounted to 419.6 million copies, a 1.49 percent drop. However, the report noted a 37 percent rise in revenue for mystery novels, largely driven by the popularity of the Freida McFadden series. In contrast, manga saw a 10.5 percent drop in value and a 13.7 percent drop in sales volume. The number of new book titles also fell by 19.2 percent since 2019. Bookstores accounted for 25.7 percent of all printed new book purchases in 2025, a slight decrease from the previous year. The French Bookstore Syndicate (SLF) reported a 0.9 percent increase in overall turnover for 2025, with book sales rising by 0.6 percent. However, the volume of books sold dropped by 0.5 percent, partly offset by price increases—1.1 percent for hardcover books and 2.2 percent for paperbacks. Sales to local authorities increased slightly, from 16.4 percent to 17.2 percent of total book turnover. Nearly a third of bookstores in the SLF survey saw their book sales drop by 5 percent or more. Smaller bookstores, with annual book sales under 300,000 euros, experienced a 3.3 percent decline in 2025, with a quarter of them seeing drops of over 10 percent. The SLF highlighted that comics and manga contributed to the decline in bookstore activity, with the category as a whole falling by 2.4 percent in 2025—1 percent for comics and 7.7 percent for manga. The 2026 Goncourt selection faced an unusual situation when the novel C'était ça ou mourir by Thélyson Orélien, published by Grasset, was removed from consideration after allegations of using artificial intelligence. The second shortlist includes Boris Bergmann, Sonia Devillers, Anne Godard, and Yannick Haenel, with Philippe Jaenada, Clémentine Mélois, Sylvain Prudhomme, and Olivier Rolin rounding out the list. Gallimard and its subsidiary L'Arbalète have three books on the list. Altares will release its third-quarter business failure data in the coming weeks.