Local

Sunday, August 20, 2006 LOCAL Local author makes her poetry available YOUNGSTOWN — Area author Michelle Carter-Douglass will sell and autograph individual copies of selected poems that will be featured in her upcoming book, "Behind Closed Doors: A Collection of Poetry By Someone You Thought You Knew," Saturday during the "Down the Hill Block Party & Parade," corner of John and School streets, on the city's South Side. The event will take place from 1 to 5 p.m. Souvenir booklets containing poems also will be available. Prices will be $1 to $5 for individual works and $12.50 for booklets For further information, call (330) 501-5185. INTERNATIONAL Political manifesto suits French tastes PARIS — Forget Dan Brown and "The Da Vinci Code." The best-seller French people are taking to the beach this summer is a political manifesto by conservative Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, considered a front-runner in the race for the presidency in 2007. Within two weeks of its publication on July 17, "Temoignage" ("Testimony") had risen to second place in the weekly top 10 list published by trade paper Livres Hebdo. In the week ending Aug. 13, it stood at No. 3, behind two novels by popular French author Marc Levy ("Just Like Heaven," "If Only It Were True"). "I didn't think it would be such a huge success, because it is unheard of for a book launched after July 15 and written by a politician to do so well," said Bernard Fixot, who heads Sarkozy's publisher, XO Editions. Sarkozy has made no secret of his desire to run for president next year. The minister has seized on the success of his manifesto as a positive indicator of public interest in his expected electoral campaign, Fixot said. The book has been reprinted several times and now totals 315,000 copies in print, up from an initial run of 130,000, Fixot said. It has been selling particularly well in holiday resorts. Local media said that, by comparison, books written by politicians normally sell between 10,000 and 30,000 copies. Fixot noted, however, that French people have traditionally had a strong appetite for writing by politicians. "French Democracy," published by former President Valery Giscard d'Estaing in 1976 while he was in office, sold 1 million copies. "Books remain the only media that do no suffer from economic censorship," Fixot said. "On television, a politician can't make a speech lasting one hour. In a book, a politician can say what he wants to say in the time he wants to say it." Combined dispatches