During the meeting between Pope Francis and Scholas Occurrentes, held today in the Synod Hall in Rome, a new Mondadori publishing project was presented developed in collaboration with Scholas Occurrentes and the start up eFanswer: Chiedete. Le mie risposte alle vostre domande, a book that will be published later in the year, both in Italy and abroad.

Chiedete. Le mie risposte alle vostre domande is not just a book but an international “social event”, in which Pope Francis invites young people from around the world to ask him questions on the site www.askpopefrancis.scholasoccurrentes.org, developed together with the start-up eFanswer and available in five languages: Italian, English, French, Spanish and Portuguese. You can ask anything, there are no predefined arguments or issues, the important thing is that what you want to know comes from the heart. The questions will be collected and selected by Mondadori and Scholas Occurrentes on the basis of two main criteria: variety and originality, in order to allow Pope Francis to share his thoughts on topics never so far addressed. The Holy Father’s answers will be published in a book to be released in the coming months and for which the rights will be sold worldwide. Edited by Tiziana Lupi, a journalist, who wrote Our Pope, an illustrated biography of Pope Francis published by Mondadori in 2014, and edited My Idea of ​​Art, a book published last year, also by Mondadori, in which, for the first time, Pope Francis expressed his thoughts on art.

Chiedete. Le mie risposte alle vostre domande is an authentic social book, which uses new forms of communication to put the Holy Father in contact with people from every corner of the planet. A sort of collective book interview, a new concept, a great virtual dialogue between Pope Francis and young people from around the world, of any social class and religion who, thanks to the internet, can ask their questions just as if they had him in front of them.

During the meeting Pope Francis underlined how important it is to learn to enter into a dialogue, because in a dialogue everybody wins and nobody loses; because dialogue means building bridges. Tiziana Lupi, who presented the project, focused on just this concept to describe it: “With this book, together with Scholas Occurrentes and Mondadori, we have tried to open a door to this dialogue. Unfiltered, so that young people can ask their questions directly on the web platform. The aim is to be open to listening and dialogue, two key tools, as Pope Francis himself claims, for the creation of a different world.” The first two questions were asked by two of the 12 YouTubers present at the meeting. The answers, which the Holy Father gave immediately, will be the first to be included in the book.

This project has been developed in collaboration with Scholas Occurrentes, an international organisation of pontifical law created by Pope Francis and concerned with young people and education with the aim of promoting social integration and a culture of encounters for peace, and thanks to a technological and publishing platform developed by the start-up eFanswer.

Mondadori announces that the new name of RCS Libri S.p.A. is Rizzoli Libri S.p.A.. Today, the company entered the consolidation scope of the Group chaired by Marina Berlusconi and led by Ernesto Mauri, after the closing was completed today.

The members of the new Board of Directors of the company, active on the Italian trade and educational books market, and on the illustrated books market also on an international level, are: Gian Arturo Ferrari (Chairman), Paolo Mieli, Antonio Porro, Oddone Pozzi and Enrico Selva Coddè.

Specifically, Enrico Selva Coddè, Managing Director of the Trade area of Mondadori Libri S.p.A., will head the Trade area of Rizzoli Libri S.p.A., while Antonio Porro, Managing Director of the Educational area of Mondadori Libri S.p.A., will head the Educational books and International Illustrated books area of the company.

¹ Change subject to filing with the relevant company registry

Digital School, the training initiative promoted by Donna Moderna, CasaFacile and Sale&Pepe, has launched three new e-learning courses for aspiring writers: Creative Writing – romantic fiction, life stories and the thriller – online from today on Digitalschool.it.

The new courses are aimed at those who want to write, share emotions and tell stories. Under the guidance of publishing professionals including editors and authors, it will be possible to acquire the tools of creative writing, to practise and refine your skills while learning to apply narrative methods and explore in more detail specific narrative genres, in line with individual interests, for example, in romantic fiction, life stories and the thriller.

Each of the three options on offer is organised in two modules: the first, run by Edoardo Brugnatelli, an editor at Mondadori, will outline the notions underlying creative writing; while the second will illustrate the narrative techniques of the chosen genre, with advice and observations from the writers Alessandra Appiano, for romantic fictions, Michela Murgia, for life stories and Grazia Verasani, for the thriller.

All participants will have the possibility of seeing their stories published Donnamoderna.com. Plus, every month, Edoardo Brugnatelli will select three pieces of work for personalised editing and publication on the site.

The teaching materials for the course includes 3 hours of online video lessons with practical exercises, supporting documentation and 2 test games to ascertain the skills acquired and a final certificate of attendance.

Enrolment for the entire programme (first and second modules) ives participants the option to buy the other two modules by the writers.

For more information about enrolment and costs, please go to: Digitalschool.it.

The official hashtag is: #progettodigitalschool.

Marina Berlusconi, chairman of the Mondadori Group, today, at the Casa Santa Marta, presented Pope Francis with the first copy of the Italian edition of the book-length interview with the Holy Father entitled Il nome di Dio è Misericordia (The Name of God is Mercy). A conversation with Andrea Tornielli – published by Piemme, together with some examples of the main editions of the book to be published tomorrow in some 86 countries around the world.

Present at the meeting, along with the journalist Andrea Tornielli, were Ernesto Mauri, chief executive officer of the Mondadori Group, Enrico Selva Coddè, managing director of Mondadori Libri, and other representatives from Mondadori and Piemme. Also present were Monsignor Giuseppe Costa (director of Libreria Editrice Vaticana), Zhang Agostino Jianquing (an inmate of Padua prison who in April 2015 received the sacraments of baptism, communion and confirmation) and Roberto Benigni, who will take part tomorrow in the presentation of the book at 11 am at the Istituto Patristico Augustinianum; which will also be attended by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s Secretary of State, and Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican press office.

For the first time in a book-interview, Pope Francis addresses all men and women across the globe in a simple, intimate and direct dialogue. The Holy Father examines the theme of mercy, which is so central to his teaching and his personal experience as a man, a priest and pastor. Indeed, the book is a summary of both his teaching and his papacy and His Holiness wanted to inscribe the cover of the Italian, English, French, German, Spanish and Portuguese editions of book personally.

Andrea Tornielli, a Vatican specialist and journalist for La Stampa, is also responsible for the Vatican Insider web site and contributes to a number of international magazines. He is the author of many books, in particular the first biography of the Pope, entitled, Francis. Pope of a New World (2013), and This Economy Kills: Pope Francis on Capitalism and Social Justice, which have been translated into 16 and 9 languages, respectively.

Its title will be The name of God is Mercy and it will be published worldwide in January 2016 on the occasion of the Jubilee. The Italian publisher is Piemme, which has world rights.

In a conversation with the Vatican expert Andrea Tornielli, Pope Francis discloses the core of his papacy and, in his simple and straight words, conveys the great message of the Holy Year of Mercy.

For the first time, in a book interview signed by himself, Pope Francis addresses each woman and each man on Earth in a deep, simple and intimate dialogue. Through his own experience as a priest and shepherd, the pope talks about Mercy, a subject of central importance in his teaching and testimony. He explains the reasons for this extraordinary Holy Year that he has so strongly promoted, and in doing so he speaks to all the souls – inside and outside the Church – who are looking for a meaning in life, for a road to peace and reconciliation, for a healing to their physical and spiritual wounds. It is the summing up of his teachings and papacy.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio Born in Buenos Aires the 17th of December 1936, since the 13th of March 2013 he is the Bishop of Rome and the 266th Pope of the Catholic Church. On the 13th of March 2015 he decided to give a decisive turn to his papacy by announcing the Holy Year of Mercy that will begin on December 8th 2015 and will end on November 20th 2016.

Andrea Tornielli Vatican expert, journalist at the newspaper La stampa and responsible for the website Vatican Insider, he collaborates with several Italian and international newspapers. He has written many books, among which the first biography of the Pope, Francis. Together (2013), translated into 16 languages, and Pope Francis. This economy kills, translated into 9 languages.

[Photo credits: MONDADORI PORTFOLIO/Archivio Grzegorz Galazka/Grzegorz Galazka]

With a print run of 500,000 copies, Italy is the first country, outside the US and the UK, to publish the new novel by E L James.

After the success of the Fifty Shades of Grey Trilogy, with worldwide sales of over 125 million copies, in just 4 days, the new novel, GREY sold more than a million copies in the United States, beating all previous records.

Seen through the eyes of Christian Grey, his thoughts, reflections and dreams, E L James offers readers a new perspective of the love affair that has enthused millions of readers around the world.

Christian Grey loves to have control over everything: his world is ordered, methodical and entirely empty until the day that Anastasia Steele bursts into his office with her enchanting body and splendid chestnut hair. He tries to forget her, but is overwhelmed by an emotional storm that he can’t quite understand and is unable to resist.
Unlike all the other women that Christian has met before, the shy and ingenuous Ana seems to reach straight to his heart – a cold and injured heart – and see beyond the image of the successful businessman and his exclusive and luxurious lifestyle.
With Ana, will Christian be able to banish the nightmares of his childhood and the ghosts of his past that torment him every night? Or will his obscure sexual desires, his obsession with control and the self-hatred that fills his soul push Ana away and destroy the fragile hope that she offers him?

Find out, from 3 July with Grey.

Mondadori and Horizons Unlimited – the Bologna-based company that runs MLOL (MediaLibraryOnLine), a network of more than 3,000 libraries in 15 Italian regions and in 4 foreign countries for the distribution of digital content – have reached an agreement to make the ebooks of the Mondadori Group available at Italian public libraries.

From next January, over 6,000 ebook titles from the catalogues of Edizioni Mondadori, Einaudi, Sperling & Kupfer and Piemme will be made available to the library system through the MLOL platform, adding to the 19,000 or so digital titles already available.

MLOL will manage a distribution channel for Mondadori aimed at all the (public, university and school) libraries in Italy and abroad, along with a dedicated shop and a series of tools that will make it possible to integrate the Mondadori digital titles with the catalogues of the libraries.

The ebooks produced by the Mondadori Group will be distributed on MLOL with the standard “one-copy-one-user” formula: in practice, a mechanism that simulates the library loan of printed books. This basic formula will enable single libraries to acquire a given title at full price and to make it available as a free remote download with a DRM of 14 days to users of the library. The aim of the Mondadori and MLOL project, however, is also to experiment in the future with new sales formulas based on the concept of “pay per view”.

“We are extremely pleased with this agreement,” declared Riccardo Cavallero, general manager of Trade Books at the Mondadori Group. “Libraries are a very valuable channel for the experience of digital reading that in this way will become even more open, shared and accessible. It means that ebooks can reach a wider public in an authentic process of democratisation,” Cavallero concluded.

“The entry of the Mondadori Group in the digital market for libraries completes a cycle begun by MLOL in 2009,” said Giulio Blasi, CEO of Horizons. “The inclusion of all of Italy’s leading publishers on MLOL marks a significant closing of the gap between the situation here and that in the United States, where 90% of public libraries and all academic libraries offer their users access to ebooks. Through MLOL almost half of Italian public libraries have access to the books produced by the country’s leading publishers. This means that Italy is among the leaders in Europe in the provision of digital library services, something of which we are extremely proud.”

According to Stefano Parise, President of the Italian Libraries Association (AIB), “this is an agreement that gives libraries access to the ebook catalogues of Italy’s leading publishing group. I hope that this example will encourage other publishers to do the same and to experiment with innovative formulas, while we wait for the legislative measures that will define the role and prerogatives of libraries also in the digital area. The AIB is committed to facilitating this development, in line with the recommendations of the international library organisations, the IFLA and EBLIDA.”

Mondadori will propose a large number of public events at this year’s of “Lucca Comics & Games”, the International Festival of Comics, animated film, illustration and games. From today, Thursday 31 October, until 3 November, fans can choose from a series of meetings with authors, presentations, previews and events at the Mondadori Comics Stand (Piazza Napoleone Pavilion E149 ) and the Mondadori-Games Stand(Carducci Pavilion A709 ) and at other festival locations.

Starting today, Thursday 31 October with a celebration of the great George R.R. Martin, an event dedicated to the Game of Thrones with a contest between cosplayers and highly qualified judges such as Sergio Altieri, Matteo Patané and Edward Stoppacciaro, and the screening of a key episode of the TV series broadcast on Sky, at 5.30 pm in the Auditorium San Girolamo.

Friday 1 November is a very full day: at the Mondadori-Comics Stand at 10 am Giancarlo Berardi and Ivo Milazzo, creators of the celebrated Ken Parker, will reveal the details of the re-edition of the Lungo Fucile saga.

At 12 Cecilia Randall will present Millennio di fuoco together with Francesco Millennium Falcons. At 12 midday and at 5 pm, a double date with Gine, the designer of the unpublished Gli scudi di Marte, the twelfth volume of the series Historica. The day continues with a preview presentation of Prima, a new series of bimonthly Mondadori Comics: at 4 pm (and again on Saturday at 5 pm), a meeting with Robin Recht , one of the two extraordinary designers of Elric – il trono di rubino, the first volume of the saga.

And don’t miss at 4 pm, in the Auditorium San Girolamo, the long-awaited Chrysalide Roundtable, featuring Licia Troisi, Leonardo Patrignani, Emma Romero, Barbara Baraldi, Francesco Falconi and Vanni Santoni, with Sergio Altieri in the moderator’s chair.

The first event on Saturday 2 November is at 11.15 am in the Ingellis Hall, where Paolo Barbieri presents Apocalisse with Valerio Massimo Manfredi. At 2 pm there are two events: Valerio Massimo Manfredi presents My Name is Nobody: The Return at the Auditorium San Romano. While the spectacular Cosplay Hunger Games Parade (in partnership with Universal Pictures ) begins, starting from the MOV Area of the Praetorian Loggia in Piazza San Michele ending at the Mondadori-Games Stand. Almost at the same time, also on the Stand, the Cosplayer Hunger Games photo session will start.

And again on the Hunger Games theme, at the Universal stand the public may draw a ticket to win great Hunger Games prizes. While at 4 pm, on the Mondadori-Comics Stand, a special guest Hermann will be available to the public to sign copies of Bois Maury from the Historica series.

The grand finale of the day will take place at 4.30 pm, with the C&G Cosplayer Asterix event, on the Lucca stage: a surprise that should not be missed.

Sunday 3 November, the final day, begins with Vanni Santoni presenting Terra ignota, with Emanuele Manco of Fantasy Magazine, at 11.15am in the Ingellis Hall, and ends wonderfully with the presentation of I regni di Nashira. Il sacrificio by Licia Troisi accompanied by Sandrone Dazieri, at 2 pm in the Auditorium San Romano.

In addition, every day at the Mondadori-Comics Stand, you can browse and interact with Mondadori digital comics (Diabolik, Asterix, Lupo Alberto, Milo Manara, etc.) on the latest generation devices available to visitors.

Following the extraordinary success of the last edition, from 21 to 24 November sees the return of BOOKCITY MILANO 2013 an event sponsored by the Culture Department of the City of Milan and the organising committee of BookCity comprising the Rizzoli Corriere della Sera Foundation, the Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Foundation, the Arnoldo and Alberto Mondadori Foundation and the Umberto and Elisabetta Mauri School for Booksellers, with the support of the Chamber of Commerce of Milan and AIE (Italian Publishers’ Association, with the support of ALI (Italian Booksellers Association), LIM (Independent Bookstores Milan) and AIB (Italian association of Librarians). For the second time the project benefits from a partnership with Eni and Intesa Sanpaolo, in addition to a contribution by the Cariplo Foundation and EXPO 2015, and the support of Generali, Swatch, Pan Image, FPE, Alessi, Comieco, Car2Go, Somma, as well as a large group of companies that have collaborated to the realisation of the initiative.

“The first edition of BOOKCITY MILANO confirmed the city’s position as the national capital of publishing, and highlighted the great passion of the Milanese for books and reading and enjoyed a success that has echoed across Italy,” said the Councillor for Culture Filippo Del Corno. “With this second edition, we want to further establish Milan’s vocation to read and enhance its artistic and entrepreneurial ability to innovate, creating and proposing paradigms for a new way of ‘doing culture’ in our country. Also this year’s edition will centre around the Castello Sforzesco, which for the occasion will present one of its most precious treasures: the Trivulziano Codex, the manuscript by Leonardo da Vinci, which will be on exhibition for the three days of BOOKCITY in MILAN in the castle’s Treasury. But this year the programme is branching out across even more of the city, spreading virally to a number of public and private spaces and reaching as far as the Rotonda in Via Besana along an ideal ‘Reading Street’ which will involve new spaces and new proposals. An appointment that will expand and extend across the city.

BOOKCITY MILANO is a collective project dedicated to books and reading featuring a full four-day programme of events with more locations and thematic poles than last year. The Castello Sforzesco will remain the beating heart of BookCity with meetings, readings and animation. Among the many new features will be the ‘Reading Street’, which starts from the castle and proceeds along via Dante (Piccolo Teatro Paolo Grassi), Piazza Cordusio, the Loggia dei Mercanti, Piazza Duomo, the University of Milan, the Sormani Library, and arriving at the Rotonda della Besana.

In addition to the 600 events planned at different spaces across the city, including libraries and bookstores, places for reading and books and unusual spaces, BOOKCITY MILANO 2013 will feature a range of special projects, some of which have been active for some time in the area, such as the articulated BookCity project for schools, involving 940 classes from 200 schools and offering workshops in publishing, ebooks, book trailers and editorial activities. There will also be other important events such as reading/therapy sessions at hospitals in Milan and reading and writing paths in the city’s prisons.

BOOKCITY MILAN will take place at a number of locations throughout the city, many of them providing a thematic focus for dialogue on specific issues: Acquario Civico (World City Forum), Arena Civica (Sport), the Sormani Library, the Grechetto Room, the Conference Room of the Palazzo Reale (book crafts), the Giuseppe Verdi Home for Ageing Musicians (Giuseppe Verdi), Fabbrica del Vapore (Design), the Rotonda della Besana (Children) the Adolfo Pini Foundation (Philosophy), Sesto San Giovanni – Villa Mylius (Work), the Institute for the Blind, Society for the Encouragement of Arts and Crafts (fiction and non-fiction), the Piero Portaluppi Foundation (Economics), the Museum of Natural History (Science), the Museum of the Risorgimento (History), the University of Milan, the State Archives (Justice), Palazzo Greppi (History – World War II), Castello Sforzesco – Sala della Balla (Poetry), Teatro Dal Verme (Music), Palazzo Morando (Noir and Fantasy), Palazzo Reale (American Autumn), Palazzo Serbelloni, the Ferré Foundation (Fashion), the cloister of the Piccolo Teatro Grassi and Teatro Franco Parenti (Theatre – Cinema – Entertainment), the Società Umanitaria (Food & cooking), Teatro Dal Verme (Music), Villa Necchi Campiglio (Green).

During BOOKCITY MILAN the city will also be host to a large number of initiatives dedicated to books and reading, in a reading marathon in the metro, reading groups from municipal libraries will fill the metro, along with in the clowns from the Associazione Culturale La Fabbrica dei Clown; talking streets, featuring an extraordinary company of actors, will propose a way of rediscovering the great Italian poets Ariosto, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Leopardi and Carducci in the streets that the city of Milan has named after them; tales of crime, murder and great mysteries will be “shouted” from newsstands around the city, while for Stories in taxis, writers in a number of taxis, in particular those of the Radio Taxi 4000, will read a few pages of their latest novels during the customer’s trip.

Exceptionally during BOOKCITY MILAN, from November 22 to December 1, at the Treasury of the Castello Sforzesco, the original Trivulziano Codex by Leonardo da Vinci will be on exhibition. The precious manuscript will be visible, and, virtually, also available thanks to a prototype for an interactive installation for the digital study of the Codex, a project that the City of Milan has promoted at the Trivulziana Library with the support of Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Also at the Castle, Book Men will read and interpret a collective reading of love letters exchanged between figures from literature, art and culture, and the Torre del Carmine will be to open to the public, to host four daily readings programmed for Saturday and Sunday.

Plus guided tours of the Merlate (the castle wall and ramparts) and the Paroliamo initiative, a competition to find many words as possible from the many letters scattered in the middle of the courtyard, while the Castle will resound with poetry, literary fragments, sound effects for passers-by. A video-box will also be installed in the castle courtyards, where participants will be invited to leave a message and there will be a morning press round-up made by well-known journalists live in the BookCity café.

The animated ‘Talking streets’ will include a photographic exhibition with images of great writers in the windows of some of the most prestigious buildings, the Agora Expo space will host a workshop for research, exchange and innovation on one of the key issues for our life and the future of our planet: food. Expo 2015 will be at BookCity with a preview of some of the themes and projects of the upcoming Universal Exposition, which, from 1 May to 31 October 2015, will place Milan at the centre of the world. Inside the Castello Sforzesco there will be a dedicated space and a programme of meetings, workshops and games, for a foretaste of the great issues that will revolve around Expo 2015.

Also worthy of note: the Seat connection game, a treasure hunt played on the web, on smartphones, and in the city, a football tournament between writers, publishers, booksellers and librarians run by wuz.it with a particular formula for participation: the price of admission will be a book. The title you decide to donate, along with all those brought by the other spectators, will be made into a collection of books to be made available to schools in Milan.

Radio 2 and Radio 3 will be at BookCity with live coverage from the City of Milan’s Urban Centre.

Unless otherwise indicated, all the events of BOOKCITY MILAN are free with admission subject to availability.

web site: www.bookcitymilano.it | twitter: @BOOKCITYMILANO – # BCM13 | facebook: BookCity Milano