I was wandering if somebody could have ever created something like this… I usually dream a lot, and sometimes when I wake up it’s like I’ve just run for miles. Or lived another entire life.

Sun been down for days
A pretty flower in a vase
A slipper by the fireplace
A cello lying in it’s case

Soon she’s down the stairs
Her morning elegance she wears
The sound of water makes her dream
Awoken by a cloud of steam
She pours a daydream in a cup
A spoon of sugar sweetens up

And She fights for her life
As she puts on her coat
And she fights for her life on the train
She looks at the rain
As it pours
And she fights for her life
As she goes in a store
With a thought she has caught
By a thread
She pays for the bread
And She goes…
Nobody knows

Sun been down for days
A winter melody she plays
The thunder makes her contemplate
She hears a noise behind the gate
Perhaps a letter with a dove
Perhaps a stranger she could love

And She fights for her life
As she puts on her coat
And she fights for her life on the train
She looks at the rain
As it pours
And she fights for her life
As she goes in a store
With a thought she has caught
By a thread
She pays for the bread
And She goes…
Nobody knows

And She fights for her life
As she puts on her coat
And she fights for her life on the train
She looks at the rain
As it pours
And she fights for her life
Where people are pleasently strange
And counting the change
And She goes…
Nobody knows

Hi everybody,

first of all I’d like to thank you for all your emails and messages. I know I’ve been totally absent during these last months but many things changed in my life – and many are still changing.

First: I left Barcelona. The job wasn’t going well and I needed new air, I needed to start again. So I decided to come back home and here I am, living in Milan.

I’ve been looking for a job as an agent or editor and I have been lucky! Now I’m working, even if I’m only a maternity cover, for a literary agency. I share a new flat with two great girls and I’m still working with children’s books. It has not been simple, and sometimes I felt tired of looking and I only could see a black blot in my future, but I can say that now things are going better, even if in six or eight months I’ll have to find another work…

BUT I do not want to think about it now, I only want to “eat” everything is happening and I’ll start again sharing with you my books and interesting news. I’m also thinking in opening an Italian blog, specifically about what is happening in my country…. I don’t know, maybe!

Well, during the next days I promise I will post something…

See you!

Valentina

I’m not used to speak about new technologies in printing, it’s not my field and I’m not an expert. But today I read something which astonished me.

Watch this:

This machine can give you the choice between 400000 titles (they will bcome one million….) and it can print your book in five minutes. It can be used as a new print-on-demand machine or, and this is the most interesting point, it can be a new way to have rarities and old titles always ready. Can you imagine going to a bookshop and ask to print you an old title that is out of catalogue? How this will affect the life of the publishing houses? Which consequences shall we expect?

It’s also important that the inventor is the publisher Jason Epstein, who is following his own research about the cheap and “futurable” book. For the moment this machine can be found in USA, Australia, Canada and in the Library of Alessandria. Somebody told that this is the best invention since Gutenberg.

I will follow this matter carefully…

Some months ago, I was surprised by the video of the book “ABC3D”, posted on youtube to present the book by Marion Bataille, a French graphic designer who dedicated her talent to make an alphabet-pop up book that became one of the most popular (you can see the video here).

Today I would like to show another illustrated book, “Bruits“, published in France by Thierry Magnier, where the main character, Louis, with his like-a-ear head, is trying to escape from the confusion and noise of the city, discovering new sounds all over the world and finally losing himself in a discoteque full of music and friends.

 At first sight, I was attracted by the collage style and the use of graphic elements in the cover. Marion simply evokes the presence of sounds by using the circles, influences by comic but not only.

The enormous head of Louis seems to be simply big but we can easly understand that is a great ear, which means an extra ability to listen to what is happening around. The equivalence is immediate: with the big ear he can listend to every sound and every sound is stronger than usual.

Marion plays with letters and sizes through all the book, and also colors become a part of the expression of sounds in fonts. And following this, objects are built by their own noise, that means that the same noise is what makes objects (buildings, cars, bikes etc…) real. The text, the few words we can find, is simply a plus, but it isn’t the main part of the book. This is a complete visual and graphic story, with clear influences from cinema, graphic design and artistic experiments as we can see for example in Dadaism and old cartoons and comics. 

As Marion had been working for different newspapers and publishing houses, it’s clear that she’s calling to her own experience and technical baggage to make this interesting book. And as you can see in these pages, there shouldn’t be another font for the cow than this one, used for milk boxes, and the 80’s body type of the last pages is perfect to build the the ground, the walls and the sounds of a disco. 

It’s really interesting this work on fonts, illustrations and sounds. And don’t lose the end page! It’s a good eye exercise…

He is incredible!! I love his photos… He’s like a painter, but with the camara. He builds, composes spaces and puts characters there, he minds the little details that make things so special. I hope I’ll see his works soon here in Italy.

Meanwhile, I discovered Ovation TV and I’m so surprised about it. Creators from all over the world speaking about art (every kind of art!)… I didn’t know about the existence of this channel (ups..) and now I’m quite addicted. 

You can see videos, read about performances and more by clikking here, but you can also find Ovation Tv on Youtube.

I had many books here to read and during these last weeks I started. The last Frankfurt book Fair had been quite crazy for me, but I found a moment to meet Claire from Éditions Sarbacane, one of mi favourite French publisher. As my boss wasn’t with me (yes!) I had the opportunity to talk with Claire a while and she gave me these two comics (or bandes dessinées in French).

Anna et Froga, by Anouk Ricard, is a really funny comic. I admit that I don’t read French fluently, but I really enjoy a lot with the adventures of Anna and her friends. Expecially, I liked the one called “Tu veux un Chwingue?”. I read it with a permanent smile on my face! It’s simple, clear and the style of Anouk remembers me some old cartoons. 

Looking around I also found out this video based on the books and another interesting book, that I’ll try to have soon: “Le Commissaire Toumi”, also published by Sarbacane. And don’t forget to visit the Anouk web page and blog.

Max’ Travel, originally published in France under the title “La balade de Max”, is a big story -big because of the size and of the contents- of a boy who is dreaming about going away and find Spring instead of the cold Winter that is about to arrive. 

With his strange cap he starts a travel where only illustrations speaks to the reader. Except for the diary at the very beginning of the book, to pages and few words whereMax told us that he wants to go away, there isn’t text. Recently I’ve been talking with many people about the power of illustrations and the relation between text and images in children’s books. This is a perfect example of how an image can speak and change your feelings every time you open the book and travel through its pages.

There are many details that drive the reader (I repeat, the reader) to find many little things, objects, animals. The book drives to be curious, to follow Max through these places, into a world that is both a dream and has the force of the real things of everyday.

Max and his house finally fly away thanks to the cloud, a cloud that needs a patch. 

As usual books are telling me things. And right now, reading this pages, I think: sometimes our dreams need a large and difficult travel to become true. And sometimes also our dreams break down and we need to fix it, and to re-find the illusion to go on. And then, we’ll be able to fly and see our world from another point of view, and we start a new travel. 

I know that this book had been published in five languages. In Spain Crüilla published it in Spanish and Catalan, but the original publisher in France is Albin-Michel Jeunesse. For the moment I didn’t find other editions of this book on Amazon but if they exist, please tell me!

No comment… I’m eating!

This is my first night here in Barcelona after my holidays and, alone at home, I dedicated a couple of hours to my favourite hobby: google. And from a blog to a web page to another and bla bla bla… I found out this interesting project, End Papers, a gallery of images posted by the users with the best artworks they can find. 

Here with some examples of my favourite, but you can really enjoy visiting the page and post your photos.

 I received some emails asking me if the blog had been closed. 

Well, we can say that many things changed in my life. I’m living in a new house, for example. And during these last months I had been working on my book, that finally is finished, print and is being sold in bookshop. As you can imagine I ‘ve been very busy! But finally I think I’ll find my new rythm and I’ll start writing about books and things I like. 

I hope I’ll have time to post some coffe breaks, and something of my work…

And here with this photo I found vía Another Shade of grey.