The publishing phenomenon of the summer that must be read with a pencil in hand

BarcelonaA new editorial category has emerged this summer in bookstores: books for playing in Catalan. Shops have even set up a new arrivals table to accommodate the avalanche of illustrated activity book publications, which are already climbing the bestseller lists.

Blackie Books was the first imprint to invent an adult version of the Santillana Workbooks that a whole generation suffered through in the summer. "We wanted the starting point to be nostalgic, but also to overcome the trauma that doing them entailed, that they be designed for learning, but fun. And that's where the success comes from," explains Jan Martí, editor at Blackie Books. The Cuaderno de Blackie Books, which had a pop theme, expanded with Golden and Kids versions, and for five years now with a Catalan edition of the Quadern: together they have sold half a million copies.

The success of this cultural workbook format has spurred the publishing sector to follow the trend, and this summer there is a real avalanche. In addition to Blackie, Columna, Fanbooks, and Rosa dels Vents have joined. "We are a bit overwhelmed by the quantity of publishers, mostly large groups, that have released products suspiciously similar to the Quadern: same title, same size, same pagination, structure, and typography. Although at times it's a bit too blatant, it's an honor that we have inspired so many other editors," says Martí with a smirk.

Identity and language

Word searches, sudokus, and generally, puzzles have always been great summer allies. One of the singularities of the Catalan phenomenon is that illustrated notebooks take on an identity theme, they exploit the Catalan imaginary, our famous figures and, of course, the language. "It's intrinsic to the Catalan idiosyncrasy –defends Columna's editor, Glòria Gasch–. We love to champion the language, and history is also a key topic. If you start doing puzzles, you choose two topics that the public will surely like; we haven't hesitated for a moment." Columna has hired the journalist and scriptwriter of En guàrdia! Josep Maria Bunyol and the Catalan content creator Marc Solé as authors, to leverage their community. At Rosa dels Vents, they had already made notebooks with La Punta de la Llengua (the creators of the weekly "Capficat" from ARA) and now they have evolved towards humor and "catalan-ness" with authors like Pol Mallafré (@mockudrames), Xavi Bach (@xavinoriguis), and the magician Jordi Pota, all popular on social media. "We already have a lot of foreign culture through many channels. We need to find spaces to champion our culture," defends Rosa dels Vents' editor, Anna Bárcena.

Social networks are the main marketing channel for the notebooks, where the word-of-mouth of these transgenerational, family-friendly, and participatory proposals spreads, which can attract "regular readers, but also people who don't usually go to bookstores, because the playful component eliminates barriers, everyone dares to try them," opines Gasch. According to Rosa dels Vents' editor, "in the summer people want less dense and more dynamic readings, not so passive" and also that they have a social component. "Socializing is not incompatible with reading –defends Bárcena–. And if you play with Catalan, moreover, you feel productive: you play with a purpose, which is to maintain and improve the language".

For Jan Martí, Blackie's secret is its educational capacity: "We spend the whole year thinking about ideas, documenting them, and above all, turning them into puzzles, which is the most complicated part and something very few people know how to do. The reader greatly appreciates that our puzzles don't generate frustration, but that they enjoy doing them, whether they get them right or wrong. It may seem silly, but at Blackie we think a lot about not frustrating readers." "The rise of notebooks is because in the summer we want reading that makes us think a little, but from a place of fun and relaxation," says Ara Llibres' editor, Marta Moreno.

Board games in book version

But the books for playing this summer go beyond the notebook format. Some connect with the true crime trend. Ara Llibres has opted to differentiate itself from notebooks by translating a major international success into Catalan, "Murdle", by the North American enigmatist for the Sunday Times, G.T. Karber: it's a book of language and logic games in which the reader has to solve a murder. This year they have added a new, more linguistic version with Bordergrams, which offers 80 spy puzzles.

In this vein, Columna has just published two volumes of Murdoku, a viral phenomenon by Canadian Manuel Garand, which is a hybrid between a pastime and the board game Cluedo: the reader is a detective who has to identify the killer on a board representing the rooms of a house. They have even organized a Murdoku tournament on July 1st at Fnac de la Rambla. "It's a way of turning the book into an interactive object. There's now an obsession with enigmas and mental challenges, but, in fact, the publishing history is full of hybrid formats. Let's remember "Choose Your Own Adventure", says Gasch, who anticipates that they are already preparing their own original games in this style in Catalan. "I like competition, I think it speaks well of us", states the editor from Columna.

The craze for digital language games like Wordle escalated during the pandemic. The book translation maintains the playful spirit, but also the summer digital disconnection. That's why Ara Llibres keeps the flame of Paraulògic alive with a new mini edition by Jordi Palou and Pau Vidal. But there is still a third format of game books: the novel Uncorrected Proofs, by Stefano Bartezzaghi (translated by Pau Vidal himself). The plot deals with a mysterious suicide and a proofreader who knows who the culprit is and who leaves errors as clues in each chapter for the reader to reconstruct the crime. Seeing the fascination with criminal mysteries and books read with a pencil in hand, it all suggests that the trend has only just begun.