Books

Electa is pleased to present #puntoeacapo, a collection of short digital stories –for the moment “filmed” from home – by writers, curators, creatives, editors and those working with the publisher, all sharing their different perspectives and activities. They will talk about books, exhibitions and the languages of art, from publishing to architecture, passing via museum bookshops.

The #puntoeacapo social feature of stories and accounts continuesthe Art and illustrated publishing experience through the faces and voices of curators, museum directors, archaeologists, art critics, artists, architects and designers. Born during the “lockdown” weeks, #puntoeacapo starts with Electa pondering its journey as a publisher and its role flanking museums. As we mark 75 years in publishing, we have started thinking about the Electa of today and of the future with many questions and some constants (old and new).

The first series of videos responds to a desire to revisit the#patrimonioitalia and rethink our cultural identity and past by conducting a Grand Tour through books, exhibitions, memories and emotions as we look to the future.

As the end of a more complex school year than ever comes closer, teachers at all levels and in all schools, are facing another big challenge: how to assess and grade students at a distance. A key moment in the teaching-learning process. Always a complex activity, in the current situation it is particularly difficult.

In fact, in distance learning, the grading process takes on a different aspect compared with what happens in the classroom. The moments for learning assessment (for example, individual or group activities, digital presentations prepared by pupils with feedback from teachers, the level of participation in lessons) go hand in hand and often replace traditional grading methods (tests and oral exams). The new context has heightened the need for support for the more fragile students and requires inclusive teaching tools and strategies.

Valid support for teachers about to engage in this delicate process is available from Mondadori Education that provides specific content, materials and tools for the certification of skills and the assessment of levels of learning, also remotely: a variety of tests on a range of topics and subjects, maps useful for revision, digital services for each subject and all levels, from primary to first and second level secondary schools. All, even in this emergency period, freely downloadable from the publisher’s web site.

The support path that the publisher offers to teachers will continue in the coming weeks also with a programme dedicated to preparation for the final year exams, as it will be structured this year and, from September, with a practical project for recovery activities in preparation for the new school year.

Of special relevance, regarding assessments, in the HUB Test platform, that is both intuitive and easy to use e semplice and allows teachers to easily manage tests: on the one hand with the possibility of accessing a complete and varied database, and, on the other, to create new personalised tests that can be easily shared with the class.

And then there are activities that focus on teacher training via webinars, with free participation, organised by experts from the publishing house, with explanations and ideas on how to assess, as well as the techniques for assessing both synchronous and asynchronous activities.

On the basis of what has already been done since the beginning of March, as an immediate response to the emergency, to make freely available the entire range digital content for distance learning – over 40 gigabytes of content and more than 12,000 gigabytes of video, audio, customisable maps, playlists, and facilitated texts for inclusion –  the commitment of Mondadori Education continues with the proposal of a complete path to support teachers in the three crucial phases of their work: revision and testing, final year state exams and September recovery programmes.

“The emergency that we have faced, and continue to live with,” underlined Aaron Buttarelli, editorial director of Mondadori Education, “has all of a sudden obliged Italian schools to reconsider, in a very short period of time and often without adequate tools, the entire teaching-learning process. We have always been on the side of teachers and students in the pursuit of innovation and the digitalisation of schools, with a range of services for day-to-day teaching which has now taken on enormous relevance. Including the evolution of the textbook, which is no longer a static printed support but thanks to digital has become both live and dynamic, for more personalised learning, with language and formats able to inform and stimulate interest in learning.”

A commitment that is rewarded by the success among teachers and demonstrated by the data traffic metrics on the platform which has recorded a user base of some 1.5 million active users,  to which have been added, in the last two months,  more than 400,000 new registered users, with an increase of 30 times in the use of  Virtual Classes, more than 15 times for Tests and 6 times for the use of reading Apps and traffic on the site that has grown by 8 times on a daily basis.

The HUB Test offer, is part of the services offered by HUB Scuola, Italy’s most extensive database for digital teaching, and which features a number of other tools, including: the Virtual Class, an environment for the management of teaching activities and courses, exchanging comments, setting assignments and homework and monitoring progress; reading Apps to use digital books; HUB Campus for more detail on different subjects; and the HUB Scuola channel on YouTube with over 1,700 videos, organised in playlists.

Even today 120 million children around the world do not receive a basic education, and more than half of them are girls. Without the chance to study it is impossible to imagine a future, without adequate quality education there are no opportunities to build a better and more secure life.

The right to an education is even more at risk in countries like Ethiopia, where almost 30 million people live below the poverty line and 30.4% of children under the age of 5 suffer from malnutrition. Too many boys and girls (70%) are obliged to leave education after primary school in order to help their families by working in the fields and because of a lack of the right kind of support.

This is why, for Christmas, ActionAid together with Mondadori, Einaudi, Rizzoli, Piemme, Sperling&Kupfer, Mondadori Electa and Fabbri Editori have come together to face an important challenge: to guarantee the right to education for 1,800 boys and girls in the Raya Azebo of Ethiopia, one of the places in the world where the provision of primary education is most urgent, and an area that is frequently without access to drinking water and adequate sanitation.

“Going to school in Ethiopia and being able to complete studies with quality education is a right that is denied to too many children especially girls. To able to work alongside a partner like Mondadori is to receive the kind of fundamental support that will make it possible to realise the dreams of 1,800 children who have neither classrooms, nor books or materials. Thanks to the contribution of the publishing houses of the Group we will be able to build two new schools, provide electricity, drinking water and sanitation, support teacher training and build awareness in the local community of the importance of educating girls, in one of the poorest regions of the country,” declared Marco De Ponte, Secretary General of ActionAid.

The importance of an education worthy of the name – that is equal, inclusive and accessible to everyone – is an absolute priority for the Mondadori Group: indeed, it is part of a profound sense among the people who work in the company that it is a natural and fundamental element of our traditions and history as a company” declared Enrico Selva Coddè, Chief Executive of the Trade Area of Mondadori Books. “This initiative allows our publishing houses to go further and engage in a concrete and inclusive solidarity project that will benefit one of the areas of the world in which the need is most urgent. Being able to work alongside a partner like ActionAid is a guarantee for us of the seriousness of our joint commitment” concluded Enrico Selva Coddè.

The project

Most of the schools in the Raya Azebo district have wooden frames and mud walls. And due to the lack of separate toilet facilities for boys and girls, it is impossible for girls to go to school during their menstrual cycle. Such frequent absence from lessons consequently leads to poor results and even abandoning school altogether.

With the “Insieme per l’istruzione” (Together for Education) project, ActionAid and the publishing houses of the Mondadori Group will create a safe school environment for 1,800 children, half of them girls, in the primary schools of the Barie Woyane and Hawulti communities. During 2020 two school buildings, each with four classrooms, a library and separate toilet facilities for girls, will be completed. Also teaching materials and classroom furniture will be provided, along with support for girls and initiatives to improve school governance, with the increased involvement of the local communities.

The progress of the project in Ethiopia can be followed on the web site: insiemeperlistruzione.it.

With this initiative, ActionAid and the publishing houses of the Mondadori Group are committed to the shared support of the fourth of the Sustainable Objectives set by the United Nations for 2030.

ActionAid for schools

Over the last year we have ensured and improved access to free, safe and quality education for boys and girls in around 5,000 schools in 25 countries. We have also involved over 400,000 parents, teachers and students in activities aimed at preventing and combatting the early abandonment of school.

The Mondadori Group for education

We are a publishing house with over 100 years of history. Thanks to our strong links with authors and readers we are acutely aware of our responsibilities, also to civil society. There is no doubt that the right to quality education and information is an essential prerequisite for the development and growth of a country. Consequently, the active promotion, in Italy and around the world, of a culture that is accessible to all, is a central part of our mission and one of the principles of the Group’s sustainability policy.

What ActionAid does

ActionAid is an independent international organisation operating in Italy and in 44 other countries. It collaborates with more than 10,000 partners, alliances, NGOs and social movements to combat poverty and social injustice. For over 40 years ActionAid has been working alongside the poorest and most marginalised people and communities, supporting them in the knowledge that it is only through collective efforts in support of solidarity and justice that real social change can be generated. A fair and equal world for all: this is the vision that inspires ActionAid and provides its strength. In order to transform this vision of the world into concrete reality, ActionAid has adopted a specific mission for the next 10 years: to work for the promotion and adoption of democratic participation and to involve people and communities in the protection of their rights, and to collaborate, at a local, national and international level, for the realisation of change and the spread of social equality, improving the quality of democracy and consequently supporting those who live in situations of poverty and marginalisation.

From this month all new eBooks from the publishing houses of the Mondadori Group– Mondadori, Rizzoli, Einaudi, Piemme, Sperling & Kupfer e Mondadori Electa – will be published in the new ePub3 format.

The Mondadori Group is the first Italian publisher to adopt the most recent international standard for all new digital publications, confirming its commitment to the development of digital publishing and the innovations demanded by the market.

The updating project was completed after a detailed analysis of the new format aimed at further improving the reading experience to make it more inclusive. In fact, the technical specifications of ePub3 make it possible to produce eBook with improved accessibility and graphics.

The new format facilitates the publication of digital text with a higher level of accessibility thanks to more precise metadata, content marking and image description, giving the visually impaired a much wider range of books that can be used with adaptive technologies, such as special keyboards and voice-overs.

This is a continuation of the Mondadori Group’s commitment to extend access to reading for people with sight impairments, to which the company has always paid special attention, also through collaboration with institutions such as the Fondazione LIA and the Fondazione Paideia on ambitious inclusion projects, such as the catalogue of accessible Italian books (https://catalogo.fondazionelia.org) and the digital books in AAC (Augmentative and Alternative Communication ) project ILIBRIPERTUTTI (https://www.ilibripertutti.it).

Entirely retro-compatible with all reading devices and apps, the ePub3 format will also make it possible to more easily produce books with complex graphics and augmented features, such as multi-media, interactivity and animations.

The Mondadori Group is the market leader in trade books with a total market share of 25.7%. Since 2010 Group has published the majority of its editorial products also as eBooks, with a catalogue of around 20,000 titles.

This year again we will attend the Frankfurt Book Fair, at its 71st edition from 16 to 20 October with our publishing houses and imprints.

It is the most prestigious European event in the field of book publishing.

Mondadori, Rizzoli, Einaudi, Sperling&Kupfer, Mondadori Electa and Piemme will be in Hall 5.0, stand C56.

Segrate, 20 May 2019 – From today, Igor Pagani will taking over editorial responsibility for nonfiction at the Mondadori publishing house, reporting to the editorial director Francesco Anzelmo. Born in Como in 1979, Igor Pagani has a degree in the History of Contemporary Philosophy from the University of Milan, with a dissertation on the Italian editions of the works of Nietzsche. After a Masters promoted by the Mondadori Foundation, he joined the publishing house in 2007 in the Classics department. He completed his training in the Foreign Fiction department  and in 2010 he moved to the Oscar paperbacks department, as editor of nonfiction series. In 2012 he moved again to the Nonfiction Department, first as editor for Italian titles and then, in 2016, also for foreign titles . As well as the Nonfiction Department the other areas  reporting to Francesco Anzelmo are  Italian and Foreign Fiction, Miscellaneous Books, Young Adult Fiction, Paperbacks and Classics.

The Mondadori publishing house is reinforcing the editorial team for foreign fiction led by editorial director Donatella Minuto with the addition of Chiara Scaglioni and Edoardo Brugnatelli.

Chiara Scaglioni, born in Milan in 1972, graduated in Modern Literature from the Catholic University of Milan. She joined the Mondadori publishing house in 2000, where she worked firstly in communications before moving to publishing (miscellaneous books), going on to become Senior Editor of Foreign Fiction. She returns to Mondadori after 5 years at HarperCollins, where she was in charge of foreign fiction and non-fiction.

Edoardo Brugnatelli, born in Milan in 1956, graduated in the History of Philosophy from the University of Pavia and joined Mondadori in 1990. After working on the Comunità editions and foreign non-fiction, in 1998 he created and ran the Strade Blu series, where he published, among others, Michael Moore, Neil Gaiman, Chuck Palaniuk and David Sedaris. Over the last five years Brugnatelli has worked on the social reading platform Anobii.

The foreign fiction department, like Italian fiction, non-fiction, miscellaneous and young adult books, paperbacks and the classics, reports to Francesco Anzelmo, editorial director of the Mondadori publishing house.

June 1929 saw the publication of the first four detective thrillers with a brand new yellow cover design and signalled the beginning of one of the longest-lasting series in international publishing. Since then, in Italy, the only country in the world that uses the term “gialli” (yellow), to describe an entire literary genre, precisely because of the colour of the original covers that not only marked an era, but that continues to the present day.

As Camilleri himself puts it: “The mystery genre is called “giallo” only in Italy. But iit is yellow not for the colour in itself but as a symbol, reflected in the colour of the book covers.”  

The first authors to be published in 1929 were: S.S. Van Dine with La strana morte del signor Benson, E. Wallace with L’uomo dai due corpi, R.L. Stevenson with Il club dei suicidi, and A.K. Green with Il mistero delle due cugine.

And they were an immediate success, with sales of over 50,000 copies in the first month. Since then, for 90 years “Il Giallo Mondadori” has continued to come out on newsstands and has published some 3,200 instalments in the regular series, plus an additional 1,400 Classics and another thousand Special editions and extra issues. An authentic world record, that now other regular series has ever matched. After 90 years “Il Giallo Mondadori” still publishes 40 title per year in five active series, with sales of around 150,000 copies.

Among the great names èublished in Italy thanks to the “Gialli Mondadori” are some of the pillars of this literary genre, including: Agatha Christie with Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple; Ellery Queen with the investigator of the same name; Rex Stout with Nero Wolfe; Erle Stanley Gardner with Perry Mason; S.S. Van Dine with Philo Vance; Ed McBain with the 87^th Precinct; Sir Arthur Conan Doyle with Sherlock Holmes, as well as Dashiell Hammett, the creator of Sam Spade, Raymond Chandler, Ruth Rendell, James Hadley Chase and Mike Spillane. Meanwhile, Italian authors include Ezio D’Errico and Giorgio Scerbanenco, Carlo Lucarelli and Loriano Macchiavelli, Danila Comastri Montanari, Sandrone Dazieri and many more.

Now, to celebrate this anniversary, a number of new titles by well-known Italian authors of “gialli” will appear in bookstores, first of all by Anrea Camilleri and followed by, among others, Francesco Caringella, Gianrico Carofiglio, Pietro Colaprico, Giancarlo De Cataldo, Marcello Simoni, Valerio Varesi, alongside reprints of some of the “classics” of the series.

The first will appear on 26 Marzo and is an unpublished novel by Andrea Camilleri entitled Km 123 and as reprints, in a new format and with a new design, by Fruttero&Lucentini – La donna della domenica, Renato Olivieri – Il caso Kodra, Edgar Wallace – I quattro giusti, S.S. Van Dine – La strana morte del signor Benson. Other new titles and reprints will follow later in the year.

Km 123 by Andrea Camilleri

It all begins with a switched off mobile phone. The caller is Ester, the non-responder is Giulio, who has ended up in hospital after a bad crash on the Via Aurelia.

The phone is turned on again by Giuditta, Giulio’s wife, who, obviously, knows nothing about Ester. It could be the beginning of a romantic story, but the tone of this story is decidedly different: in fact, a witness claims that Guilio’s crash wasn’t an accident at all, but a murder attempt, and the investigation passes from the insurance company to the police department…

Andrea Camilleri, the undisputed Italian master of the genre, gives us a mix up that is full of both humour and mystery, in which all of the characters – and we as readers too –  are convinced that they have guessed the truth.

Marta Treves from today will take over editorial responsibility for miscellaneous books and Rizzoli Lizard at the Rizzoli publishing house, reporting to the director Massimo Turchetta.

Born in Milan in 1976, after a Master’s degree in Scientific Communication and a traineeship in journalism, she joined Mondadori in 2005 as copy editor for foreign fiction and miscellaneous books. She went on to become editor of Mondadori’s children’s books and then also miscellaneous books, and after a brief spell with Rizzoli as editor of foreign fiction, she returned to Mondadori, where, since 2015 she has been editorial director of foreign fiction and young adult fiction.