Reading is a journey that leads us to discover new worlds, different cultures and, most importantly, ourselves. What better time to indulge in this practice than during the summer?

Why is summer reading so special?

With its long days and more relaxed pace, summer offers the ideal time and attitude for reading. Without the hustle and bustle of everyday life, we can finally indulge in the pleasure of leafing through a book, letting ourselves be captivated by the stories and losing ourselves in the words. Reading during the summer helps us expand our horizons, stimulating our imagination, keeping our minds exercised and reducing stress.

Here are our recommendations for holiday reading

Whatever your destination, we thought we’d offer you a collection of books selected from the most read and appreciated titles of our publishing houses (Battello a vapore, De Agostini, Einaudi, Electa, Mondadori, Mondadori Electa, Mondadori Children’s Books, Piemme, Rizzoli and Sperling & Kupfer, Star Comics and Utet), designed to satisfy readers of all ages.

Today, Alice Cairati takes up the position of Communications and Promotion Manager of the Piemme, Sperling & Kupfer and Electa publishing houses, reporting directly to General Manager Stefano Peccatori.

Born in Milan in 1984, she graduated from the University of Milan with honours in Philosophical Sciences. Cairati began her professional career with the Mondadori Group 13 years ago, at the Mondadori Electa publishing house. After three years of experience in marketing, she shifted to communications and events in 2014, before becoming Communications Manager for the Varia line of Mondadori Electa, Sperling & Kupfer, Piemme in 2019.

The new communications structure entrusted to Alice Cairati was designed to develop integrated communication plans, in which the press office, digital communications and promotion are coordinated strategically and effectively. In this respect, Cetta Leonardi is head of the Radio and TV Press and Promotion Office, Alessandro Ventura is head of the Digital Communications and Promotion Office, while Cairati remains responsible for the Events Office.

The Mondadori Group participates in the celebration of love in all its forms and nuances through some of the most interesting and representative books published by our publishing houses, dealing with themes such as diversity.

In our Group, we strive every day to build a more inclusive world where everyone can feel loved and accepted. So this month, through the power of words, writing and reading, we want to promote stories that speak a universal language: the language of love.

Martina Donati will join the Mondadori Group on September 1, 2023, as part of the team led by Stefano Peccatori, CEO of Sperling & Kupfer, Piemme, Frassinelli, Mondadori Electa, Rizzoli Illustrati, and President & CEO of Rizzoli International Publications New York. Donati will serve as Editorial Director of Italian and international fiction for Sperling & Kupfer, Piemme, Frassinelli and the Pickwick paperback brand.

«I am honoured and happy with this assignment because of the welcome and trust I have received from Mondadori Group management, and particularly Stefano Peccatori. The goal is undoubtedly to make the most of the formidable authors the various brands already have in their catalogue, and to seek out and acquire new talents. The new generation of readers is formed of a target audience of young and very young people, and the publisher is doing its best to intercept them. These are readers who have put books and reading back in the forefront of discussion, thanks to social media. Our task is to continue responding to their tastes and giving them more and more opportunities to explore the stimulating world of quality writing. We will devote our editorial offerings to them, in various areas of fiction, ranging from genre fiction to more literary fiction, particularly through the Frassinelli brand.»

Born in Florence in 1967, Donati holds a law degree from La Sapienza University in Rome and has worked in the world of publishing for more than twenty-five years. After serving as head of the press office and communications for a number of brands, including Fanucci, Arcana and Fazi Editore, where she handled such international successes as Melissa P and Twilight, she has now embraced the profession of editor.

She was Editorial Manager for Giunti, where she founded the YA and adult fiction department and published authors like Simona Sparaco, Sara Rattaro, and Lucinda Riley.

As Editorial Manager at Newton Compton, she has recently worked on scouting and launching Italian and foreign authors such as Angela Marsons, Robert Bryndza, and Elena Armas, and in conceiving the best-selling Medici series written by Matteo Strukul. She has also been involved in non-fiction and miscellaneous publications, taking a gamble on Mark Manson, author of the highly successful “The subtle art…”

In 2017 she introduced Felicia Kingsley, a very Italian writer who has now become one of the most successful authors on the Italian publishing scene.

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This June, our brands take part in the festivities of Pride month, a time of the year dedicated to celebrating the diversity, inclusion and rights of the LGBTQIA+ communities.

Pride month is an occasion to foster values such as respect, equality and tolerance towards each individual, regardless of their gender, identity or sexual preferences.

For pride month, we recommend a series of publications on LGBTQIA+ topics published by our publishing houses. We believe in the power of books as a tool used to convey inclusiveness through stories speaking of all shades of love.

Mondadori and Star Comics created a special Pride month page on their respective websites to demonstrate their commitment towards inclusion and diversity. In fact, the same will contain various book suggestions for its readers. And there’s something for everyone: from comics to novels or autobiographies to memoirs.

Thanks to this initiative, people can access a vast range of editorial offers depicting heartfelt and open-minded stories full of brave characters.

Our publishing houses also suggest other reading suggestions:

The Wom also created a special section on its website. The Wom in fact addresses its community through such area by sharing content developed to give space to the LGBTQIA+ communities and clarify the most controversial issues to spread awareness and inclusion.

 

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Daisy Jones & The Six is back in the bookstores on the occasion of the March 3rd arrival, on Prime Video, of the long-awaited TV series based on the novel: 13 episodes produced by Amazon Studios and Reese Witherspoon, starring Riley Keough and Sam Claflin. 

The book, published in Italy by Sperling & Kupfer, has been a global success: a New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller, independent American booksellers’ book of the month and book of the year according to major international publications.

“The rock novel of the year” tells the story of the dizzying rise to success of an iconic ’70s rock group, revealing the mystery behind their notorious break-up.

“Reading this story, told in first person by the people who appear in it, is like watching an amazing series of documentaries about an icon of rock music. A novel overflowing with style and energy.”

– The New York Times

The author

Taylor Jenkins Reid wrote Carrie Soto Is Back, Malibu Rising, Daisy Jones & The Six and The seven husbands of Evelyn Hugo, all New York Times bestsellers. She started out with the novels: One True Loves, Maybe in Another Life, After I Do, and Forever, Interrupted. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and daughter. taylorjenkinsreid.com

The plot

Daisy Jones & The Six: a rock group becomes a legend. Their concerts have packed stadiums all over the world, and their songs have inflamed a whole generation. Their legend is the fairy-tale of the dizzying rise from their first performances in underground clubs to world-wide stardom. It’s the incarnation of a time when sex, drugs and rock’n’roll went hand in hand. The story is one of a perfect alchemy: the unique magnetism between Billy Dunne – the band’s charismatic, tormented frontman – and Daisy Jones, the splendid cover girl and singer with a natural talent and a free, elusive spirit. Yet on 12 July 1979, at the end of a memorable concert, the group split up forever. Nobody has ever known why… Until now.
The former band musicians and managers, reporters and family members were all witnesses to the event, and now, forty years later, they are finally ready to tell the truth. But each of them has his or her own version of the events. What is brought back in their words is a story of a bunch of twenty-year-old friends and lovers, brothers and rivals; idols on the stage, fragile souls when the lights go down. A story of crazy nights and lost dawns, of dreams too big to be seized and demons too strong to be defeated, passions that ignited the blood in their veins. Because a song is never just a song. There’s life, in music. And it’s impossible to say where one ends and the other begins.

Sperling & Kupfer  has conceived this new fiction series that explores a territory where the macabre and eerie, horror and gothic and supernatural and fantastic suspense converge. Authored by Italian and foreign writers.

As Stephen King – the absolute master of terror for over forty years – says in Danse Macabre: «Stranger makes us nervous… but we love to try on his face in secret»;. What is alien and dark scares us, but we are inevitably drawn to it. Because it speaks to the least acceptable part of our being that we don’t want to admit exists. Because it embodies our personal and collective fears. Because looking him in the face – or reading about him – is the only way to exorcise him. And here lies the allure of the terror narrative: the power to create demons and then destroy them.

There will be contemporary, still unpublished stories, but also modern classics to be rediscovered, introduced by well-known Italian writers or critics. To enrich the book offering, covers will be designed by highly influential illustrators and cartoonists whose task will be to give visual form to
what’s eerie and scary.

And, as a tribute to the Master, we could only call it Macabre.

Nel buio della casa by Fiore Manni and Michele Monteleone: release date 12 October

A new Italian horror novel, an under-represented genre in Italy, co-authored. Set over two time planes, the novel is a horror story, underpinned by a strong love and family narrative.

Fiore Manni is the author of several novels for children (Rizzoli). Michele Monteleone is a well-known comic book writer. Both authors are passionate about horror stories

The last house on needless street (original title) by Catriona Ward.

Listed by the Guardian (and not only) among the most anticipated books of 2021. It debuted (in March) in fourth place on the Times ranking, and first in ebooks. Sold, for now, in 20 countries.

Chasing the boogeyman (original title) by Richard Chizmar.

It will be released in a month’s time in the US. Chizmar (publisher of the Cemetery Dance and editor of the magazine of the same name, specialising in particular in the horror genre) has penned a solo novel, not co-written with his friend, Stephen King, as his previous fiction.

Sperling & Kupfer today launches the podcast Senza perdere il filo. Narratori di mondi possibili on the main audio platforms. This is the first podcast produced by a publishing house with original content created ad hoc by authors with the Mondadori Group’s publishing houses.

The theme of the podcast is sustainability. Developed from an idea by Linda Poncetta, a fiction editor at Sperling & Kupfer, and Grazia Rusticali, chief fiction editor at Sperling & Kupfer and Piemme, the project is part of the eleventh edition of the international Nudge Global Impact Challenge.

People who tell stories create new worlds, or show us the world in which we live in a different light, suggesting ways it could be improved. With their stories, the protagonists of this podcast stimulate reflection on a new beginning, an opportunity to imagine a different future after Covid. Because there is an answer to the change we are looking for: a more sustainable world, a future where we respect ourselves, other people and the environment around us.

From high-quality teaching to gender equality, from the fight against climate change to the value of diversity:  Senza perdere il filo is a podcast that examines the past, recounts the present and imagines the future, through contributions from 7 authors, who talk about every aspect of sustainability.

Each episode is inspired by one of the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals. The authors who took part are Sara Rattaro (Le parole cambiano il mondo; storytelling and creative writing), Claudio Pelizzeni (Consigli per viaggiare sostenibile), Federica Gasbarro (Le parole insegnano, gli esempi trascinano; climate change), Guido Marangoni (Uguali e diversi; diversity and inclusion), Francesca Vecchioni (È l’uomo misura di tutte le cose?; gender equality), Andrea Maggi (Lezioni per un futuro sostenibile; high-quality teaching) and Annalisa Monfreda (Quell’intreccio prezioso di vita e lavoro; smart working and the future of work).
The podcast is available free on: Spotify, Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Amazon Music. The first three episodes are currently available; the next two will be published on 17 May and the last two on 24 May. The Senza perdere il filo series is produced by Sperling & Kupfer with the editorial supervision of Linda Poncetta. Sound design and realisation is by Luca Carano.
https://www.spreaker.com/show/senza-perdere-il-filo
The project stems from the Mondadori Group’s participation in the Nudge Global Impact Challenge, an eight-month personal development program concentrating on leadership and sustainability, for young professionals from all over the world. During the program the ninety participants have the chance to develop an idea with a positive impact for a more sustainable world.

For more than 110 years, the mission of the Mondadori Group has been to foster the circulation of culture and ideas, through a high-profile leisure offer for the widest possible public. A leading player on the book market and Italy’s primary multimedia publisher, Mondadori has embraced a social responsibility path that, through all its channels, promotes quality content highlighting sustainability, plurality of thought, inclusion and diversity, with an approach geared to innovation.

Mondadori’s commitment takes the form of activities to support the communities where the group operates: promotion of reading, education, training and social and healthcare assistance. The group has also implemented a range of initiatives to reduce the environmental footprint of its offices and bookstores, which have led to a significant reduction in carbon emissions and increased use of certified paper for the production of books and magazines.

The Mondadori Group has redesigned its Trade Books Area under the leadership of the chief executive of Mondadori Libri S.p.A. Enrico Selva Coddè, with the aim of pursuing growth and development opportunities for its publishing houses.

“We have defined a new organisational model that will enable us to respond more effectively to the central challenges in trade publishing, a sector in increasingly rapid evolution, also at the international level,” declared Enrico Selva Coddè. “A necessary change to look to the future of the country’s leading cultural industry with the innovative approach that has always characterised our publishing houses,” Selva Coddè concluded.

Consequently, two new crossover departments have been created that will report directly to Enrico Selva Coddè.

The first, the department of General Operations, will be headed up by Filippo Guglielmone, with the aim of orienting the business at the highest possible level of cost efficiency and service possible; operations and sales will be integrated in a single process to drive value generation and make it possible to optimise time-to-market, increase customer satisfaction and facilitate the growth of the publishing houses.

The second, the department for Strategic Marketing, Rights and Acquisitions, to be led by Lorenzo Garavaldi, aims to reinforce the company’s role in the publishing market through analysis and the definition of market strategy, the coordination of acquisition activities and the identification of development priorities.

Reporting to Enrico Selva Coddè, the publishing houses will also absorb product marketing activities giving them all control over communication, in line with a scenario in which the enhancement of authors’ work is part of a single publishing effort that goes from the title to readers’ comments.

The publishing houses are led by Francesco Anzelmo, General Manager of Mondadori; Ernesto Franco, General Manager and Editorial Director of Einaudi; Massimo Turchetta, General Manager of Rizzoli Trade and Publishing & Rights Development; Stefano Peccatori, General Manager of Sperling & Kupfer, Piemme and Mondadori Electa, and Lorenzo Garavaldi, General Manager of BU Ragazzi.

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.