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"What is German humor?" was the question most often asked of bestselling author David Safier during his visit to Barcelona last Thursday. His purpose was to present his very successful novel "Mieses Karma" ("Maldito Karma" in Spanish or “Bad Karma”) to the Spanish public, where it has also been a success, selling no fewer than 75,000 copies ahead of its publication as a club edition by Círculo de Lectores late this summer. Safier attributes this partly to the fact that most Southern Europeans pronounce his name as if it was French. "Apparently nobody credits the Germans with any sense of humor," he said with a grin as he presented the book to over 50 readers.

"Together you're less alone:" nobody knows this better than Anna Gavalda, author of the novel by the same name. And the German title of her pan-European bestseller also perfectly matches the motto of a very special campaign that France Loisirs will launch today: probably the first company in France ever, the French DirectGroup company goes online this Monday with a Facebook application that allows users to co-write an interactive serial novel. The beginning of the story will come from Anna Gavalda herself.

"Have you ever held one?" Bernhard Mischke asked. "No? Then it's about time," says the head of digital marketing at the Deutscher Pressevertrieb (DPV) and presents the most talked-about media device of the year - the iPad. "Let me show you two examples," he says, and starts an app from a French magazine. Brilliant pictures, short texts, which you can scroll through by your moving your finger, videos launched by lightly tapping the screen. "The iPad is setting new standards," adds Thomas Feinen, head of business development at DirectGroup. "Or look at the ‘Toy Story' picture book," continues Mischke and taps on another app. It opens into a kind of enhanced e-book - a surprisingly impressive one too: a big picture appears which automatically zooms in on various details. A short text appears next to the image, which can be read out by audio playback.

Last Saturday, the annual Prague Book Fair, the biggest and most important book fair in the Czech Republic, ended with a record: almost 40,000 visitors – more than ever before – visited the historic trade fair halls of the "Industrial Palace" built in 1891 during the four days of the trade fair. Many of them came to see and hear the famous authors who had come to Prague at the invitation of the DirectGroup publisher Euromedia.

The philosophy professor, essayist, literary critic and cultural publicist Konrad Paul Liessmann is the winner of this year’s “Danubius,” the nonfiction award administered by the Austrian media club, Donauland. The judges presented the award in recognition of Liessmann’s body of work, which repeatedly dealt with topical problems in society. The prestigious award, which comes with a €10,000 purse was presented on Tuesday evening at the Palais Albertina in Vienna. The Austrian writer Michael Köhlmeier gave the speech honoring Liessmann.

It all began in 1970 with 115 books and 50 records: On Oct 1 of that year France Loisirs, the French counterpart to the German club, published its first catalog . The club itself, today a Direct Group subsidiary, had already been founded almost six months earlier on April 27, 1970.

French student Pauline Fougère won the first competition for the Book Trailer Award of the French club France Loisirs. The jury consisted of authors from the French DirectGroup subsidiary; they selected Fougère’s one-minute film entitled "Les mouillettes" (a French kind of canapés) from among almost 50 submitted scripts as the winner of the competition. Her film visualizes the cookbook "La cuisine Bistrot" by Stéphane Reynaud.

Finding this many celebrities from the Ukrainian media world in one place is a rare event: 200 guests, among them publishers, authors, and managers, met in Kharkov in mid-April to celebrate a very special event: the 10th anniversary of DirectGroup's Family Leisure Club (FLC). Founded in the year 2000, the club and publisher can be proud of its activities over the past ten years, as FLC's Managing Director Oleg Shpilman said. "Over the last 10 years the Company has been very successful. We are the largest publishing house in the country. We produce 15 million books per year; that represents 30 percent of all books published in Ukraine." The numbers speak for themselves: a club with 1.7 million members, more than 50 shops in Ukrainian cities, 1,300 employees, the largest distribution center in Eastern Europe – ten years of FLC , and an impressive success story.

As always on Sant Jordi, the streets of Barcelona were boiling with book-lovers of all ages and sizes: around the Ramblas, crowds of people were out and about to buy a special present for their loved ones on St. George’s day – a book or a rose. The Catalan tradition of gift-giving on this special day – women traditionally give their men a book, while men give their women a rose – drew thousands of Barcelona residents out onto the streets, where countless book and flower stands beckoned.

"The exemplary prose, and its value as a testimony to an epoch" were the reasons given by the jury for presenting Antonio Gamoneda with the "Premio de Literatura Ciutat de Barcelona" for his book "Un armario lleno de sombra" ("A Wardrobe Full of Shadows). The award is given by the Catalan city’s municipal council or City Hall to Spanish-language works. "Un armario lleno de sombra" is published by Galaxia Gutenberg / Círculo de Lectores. Gamoneda’s book caused a stir among critics and readers alike. The author has already won the "Premio Cervantes" and the "Premio Reina Sofía" awards.

What bookworm wouldn’t love to meet their favorite author in person? Usually, however, the wish doesn’t come true. Carmen Vicari from Ludwigshafen, a Club member and fan of historical novels, is one of the few people for whom it did. By chance she actually met the husband-and-wife writing team Elmar and Iny Lorentz, who write such historical romance novels under latter’s name. And if that wasn’t enough, when the bestselling authors learned of Carmen's upcoming wedding they offered her an impromptu "wedding reading" as a gift - at the bride’s favorite bookstore of course, the Mannheim Club store.

Círculo de Lectores on Wednesday announced a partnership with the Spanish media company Grupo Planeta in Barcelona. The key items in the agreement are that Círculo will set up sections for club customers in the 25 branches of Planeta’s Casa del Libro bookselling chain in the years ahead. The club will also expand its product range through direct-marketing and database-management cooperations, making it even more attractive for customers. Grupo Planeta will henceforth own 50 percent of Círculo de Lectores. In an interview, DirectGroup CEO Fernando Carro explains Círculo’s new partnership.

A club for the entire family? A meeting point? Support? "Familis" aims to perform all of these tasks in Spain. The new service club of the Círculo de Lectores will be launched in April and will offers practical solutions for families with children in the sectors health, adult education, and leisure. Thus, the services for members of the Spanish club has been expanded and improved. Thanks to this new subscription option with a flat annual fee, members can use new services in the traditional quality of the Círculo. The goal of the "Familis" services is to facilitate life by providing quick answers, concise solutions, and advantages as well as benefits. "The offer is an innovation of the club that goes beyond the culture and media sector," the DirectGroup subsidiary announced. 

A filmed commercial for a love story set in 1920s Paris – that is the task of this year's Círculo de Lectores "II Concurso de Tráilers" competition. The second edition of the Spanish Book Trailer Awards is looking for a clip for the book "Noches blancas de París" ("The White Lights of Paris") and the serialized novel "Todos los sueños del mundo" (“The Sky Above The Linden Trees) by Theresa Révay. Both are due out from the Spanish club in June. Contestants must submit their work by Apr 29. In May a Círculo jury consisting of editors, publishers and other literary experts will select no more than 20 trailers, which will be published on the Círculo de Lectores website, where readers can then vote for the three finalists. The author Theresa Révay will decide the winner and the two runners-up. The first-prize winner receives a Panasonic video camera and their commercial will be used to promote the book. The runners-up will each receive gift packages from the company Wonderbox. 

DirectGroup Bertelsmann collaborated with the Spanish Embassy to bring the famous Spanish painter Sofia Gandarias to the Leipzig Book Fair. Last Sunday the artist opened this year's Club Bertelsmann " Jüdische Lebenswelten " (Jewish Contexts) series with an exhibition under the heading "Kafka the Visionary." Guilt and powerlessness, light and shadow, pain and death are the themes Sofia Gandarias explores in this exhibition. In thirty paintings about the life and work of the writer Franz Kafka, the artist interprets the texts of the Jewish author, which she works into her paintings based on a precise knowledge of the work.

About a year ago, on Mar 3 2009, DirectGroup’s Spanish bookstore chain Librerías Bertrand opened its new flagship store in Barcelona . With floor space of nearly 1,500 square meters and about 140,000 books in Spanish and Catalan, the store is one of Spain's biggest bookstores. As an exclusive offer for members of the Spanish book club, Círculo de Lectores also operates an integrated Club branch (Espacio Círculo) in the bookstore.

He is one of the most prominent names on Knižní klub’s author roster - and certainly one of the Czech club and publishing company’s most productive: the Czech president Václav Klaus. President Klaus has already published ten books with the DirectGroup subsidiary, which always cause a stir both at home and abroad mainly because of his highly critical attitude towards the European Union. Last Tuesday, he presented his 11th Knižní klub book in Prague: "Rok sedmý" ( "Year Seven") . Traditionally, Klaus combines his book presentations with an autograph session at the "Luxor Book Palace" on Wenceslas Square in the centre of Prague, which once again led to long lines of fans at the bookstore.

It doesn’t happen all too often that a Polish book becomes a bestseller after just one day in bookstores. In this case the book in question is “Kapuscinski Non-Fiction,” Artur Domoslawski’s biography of the journalist/writer Ryszard Kapuscinski. Kapuscinski is one of the most internationally famous Polish names ever, and the work published by the Polish club and publisher Swiat Ksiazki, a DirectGroup subsidiary, will help to ensure that this remains so: Never yet has a Swiat Ksiazki book aroused such controversy.

"The Lost Symbol,” the long-awaited new novel by Dan Brown, was probably the most important book event of 2009. Although it was only published last September, Dan Brown's conspiracy thriller easily managed to top the annual bestseller lists in countries like the U.S. and Britain in 2009. After a brief delay, depending on the speed of the translator, fans in other countries were also able to enjoy the thriller. In Ukraine, it was the Family Leisure Club (FLC), a DirectGroup club and publishing company, which brought the new Dan Brown to bookstores in Ukrainian on Dec 18. FLC’s translator Vladimir Gorbatko took exactly 33 days to translate the 608 pages into the local language.

In his native Ukraine, the writer Yurko Izdryk is regarded as the “guru of modern Ukrainian literature” – and his latest award is bound to further cement his reputation: Izdryk’s book "Take" (“Such”) has been named “Book of the Year” by the BBC’s Ukrainian broadcasting branch. The title was published by Direct Group’s Ukrainian subsidiary, the Family Leisure Club, who is no stranger to the prestigious award: last year, Lyuko Dashvar, another author signed with the Family Leisure Club, won the prize for her “Milk and Blood”.

A newspaper subscription? Old hat. Subscriptions to magazines like “Brigitte” and “Geo” are also commonplace. Some people even treat themselves to a “breakfast rolls” subscription from the local bakery or a “fruit subscription” from a nearby organic farm. But a subscription for chocolate lovers is truly a novelty. That’s what the direct-marketing experts at the DirectGroup Germany thought – so this summer they promptly partnered with the famous chocolate manufacturer Lindt to put together the “Lindt Chocoladen Club.” Since May a team of 15 has worked flat out to realize the new club, which launched in October.

The work that eight employees of the Polish DirectGroup subsidiary Swiat Ksiazki recently carried out was unusual, but it was also very helpful: within the framework of a corporate social responsibility project, they helped set up a small library and dayroom in the cancer ward at the children’s hospital in the Warsaw suburb of Miedzylesie. They painted walls and collected books. This week, the library officially opened with a short performance for the young patients. “It was such a joy to see all those seriously ill children smile for at least a couple of moments,” said Agata Platek, one of the eight Swiat Ksiazki employees, all of whom were obviously very moved.

Paris is already world-famous as the capital of food, and now the city is poised to become the first city of cookbooks as well. The world cookbook trade fair takes place here in February 2010, and one of the events scheduled is the presentation of the “Gourmand World Cookbook Awards.” The Swiss-born celebrity chef Kurt Scheller, who has lived and worked in Poland since 1991, is a hot contender for a prize. His book “Chef’s World Travel” has been nominated for the prestigious award. The book was published in Poland by the local DirectGroup subsidiary Świat Książki.

France is already famous for its food and its savoir-vivre. Now, Direct Group France is working to ensure that the French may well be on the cutting edge of shopping as well. It has partnered with the mobile services provider Prylos to test an innovation that takes customer service for shoppers to a new dimension: the digital customer card.

Vaclav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic, has notched up a long and impressive record in politics – and as a writer, with a string of successful publications to his name. Knižní Klub alone, the club operated by Direct Group’s Czech subsidiary Euromedia, has published ten works by Klaus. In his most recent book, published earlier this month under the title “Kde zacina zitrek” (roughly “Where Tomorrow Begins”), the President and his publisher recall the “Velvet Revolution,” which put a bloodless end to the communist regime in Czechoslovakia in November 1989.

"Offen für Alle” - Open for everyone – is the motto of the new, open bookselling concept under the “Zeilenreich” brand (roughly: Lots Of Lines), which Der Club Bertelsmann will be testing at three locations and online from the beginning of November. The new “Zeilenreich” stores in Berlin, Hanau and Aschaffenburg, and the online store (zeilenreich.de) are open to any and all customers: any visitor to the stores, both off- and online, can buy any of the products on offer.

Dan Brown books are selling like hotcakes - and not just for the Random House imprints Doubleday and Trans World, which publish the original English-language editions of multi-million-sellers like "The Da Vinci Code" and now "The Lost Symbol .” Dan Brown is one of the most important authors for Direct Group’s European companies, too. Together, they have already sold some 4.2 million copies of his four previous bestsellers. And while the clubs in countries like Germany, France and Spain publish their own editions and sell them en masse, in Portugal and Ukraine the collaboration with Dan Brown goes even further. In these two countries, DirectGroup subsidiaries are launching the book trade editions of his works onto the market via their publishing houses.

The most important thing at the Frankfurt Book Fair still is the personal encounters. This is also true for the publishers of DirectGroup. Having just received the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, author Claudio Magris toured the Fair – and also visited the DirectGroup Portugal’s publishers. There he met Joan Tarrida, Publisher at Large for DirectGroup’s Spanish and Portuguese businesses, who showed Magris the cover of the upcoming new book „Lei dunque capirà“ (English title: “You Will Finally Understand”). It is the author’s first book to be published by the Portuguese Imprint Quetzal.

With more than 50 million books sold to date, Isabel Allende has a huge worldwide fan base. And they probably aren’t the only ones who have been waiting with great anticipation for the bestselling author’s new novel. The big day finally arrived in mid-September: "La isla bajo el mar" ("The Island Below the Sea"), jointly published by the Random House Mondadori imprint Plaza & Janés and the Círculo de Lectores, was presented to the press in Madrid.

The DirectGroup divisional board and staff are deeply sad and mourn Reinhard Mohn.

Literary awards are important: as a confirmation of the author and as a valuable marketing tool for publishers. So when a book receives nominations for every major literary award in a country, it’s really something to write home about. In this particular case, the Polish club and publisher Świat Książki has managed this feat for the first time in its history. The book that has had such across-the-board rave reviews from the country’s literary experts is "Bambino" and was penned by author and literary critic Inga Iwasiow. It has been nominated for the "City of Gdynia Literary Award," the “Cogito Award,” the "Nike Award" of the major newspaper "Gazeta Wyborcza" and the city of Wroclaw’s "Angelus Award.”

The half-year result of the club and publishing house Świat Książki is admirable: in the first half of 2009 a total of six titles from the DirectGroup subsidiary were on the bestseller list of the prominent Polish daily newspaper "Rzeczpospolita." Only one other Polish book publisher was able to match this success; Świat Książki left all other competitors far behind. Heike Rosener, the company's CEO: " Despite the extremely difficult market conditions, we still managed to maintain our market leading position with our great collection of best selling books, even if it is ex aequo."

Love, espionage, suspense and a sweeping historical backdrop – the stuff of which Carla Montero Manglano’s novel “Una dama en juego” is made is heady indeed. The author from Madrid has won over not only her readers, but also the judges of the “Premio Círculo de Lectores de Novela 2009,” a fiction prize administered by the Spanish club. Her book has won the second round of the award and will now be published by Círculo de Lectores.

Karl-Markus Gauss, writer, essayist and publisher of "Literatur und Kritik " magazine ("Literature and Criticism") has received the "Danubius 2008" Donauland Nonfiction Award for his complete works. The decision was recently made by the Donauland Stiftung (Danube Region Foundation ) jury, which awards the Donauland Nonfiction Book Award each year .

In its native Ukraine, the Direct Group subsidiary Family Leisure Club (FLC) has long since become the country’s biggest publishing house. And in neighboring Russia, the FLC is starting to see a lot of interest in its bestsellers as well. This was evident at this year’s Moscow Book Fair, where the publishing company presented itself from Sep 2 to 7, with a focus on Russian editions of international authors. It was rewarded with crowds of visitors and keen interest from the media.

When the French Direct Group subsidiary Chapitre.com opened its new 1,200 square meter bookstore in Saint-Brieuc in the beginning of September it was not a place for someone suffering from ochlophobia because 1,100 customers attended the opening. But there was good a reason for the crowd since the shop in the "Les Champs" shopping mall is simply a perfect place for anyone who likes books: more than 52,000 titles are available on two floors, including books for young people, comics and a corner for editions from France Loisirs, the French club. But there is more: in a special 300 square meter area customers can find paper, cards, pens and other writing utensils as well as CDs and DVDs.

It has become one of the Czech Republic's most renowned awards for young talents, and this year it has done more justice to its purpose than most of the previous times around: the 19 year-old author Lan Pham Thi won the "Book Club Literary Prize" of the DirectGroup subsidiary Euromedia in the beginning of September, making her the youngest winner in the award's 14 years of history.

Der Club Bertelsmann’s September catalogue is devoted to ‘Best Quality’, a high-quality paperback cover the size of a hardcover. Der Club says the new book format is distinguished by good quality paper and excellent workmanship. This contemporary book form has already been on the market for some time and is an attractive option especially for hardcover fans. ‘Best Quality’ is hardier than a hardcover with dust jacket, which makes it also easier to handle and carry around. Apart from its handy size, another advantage is the price, which is lower than that of the hardback editions. “‘Best Quality’ suits any genre: whether it contains fantasy, thriller, love story, or topical non-fiction, the format appeals both to young and discerning readers," says Sigrid Fortkord, head of Der Club’s fiction programme.

Ten years of effort have paid off: Petra Fröhlich, the Chairwoman of the works council of Der Club, will most likely have collected €100,000 since 1999 through the employee bazaar. During the current year alone, €15,000 has been raised, which has been divided up into three equal shares and given to three institutions in Münster. The Bundesverband der Alphabetisierung und Grundbildung, the Deutsches Kinderzentrum Münster, and the organization "Herzenswünsche" each received €5,000 thanks to the donations from employees of Der Club.

The global financial and economic crisis is affecting Bertelsmann’s businesses, too – but in very different ways depending on the company or country. Therefore, at each Bertelsmann business, the respective entrepreneurs have to decide locally what measures they are going to take to counter impending or actual revenue declines. And what measures they can use to perhaps even gain additional market share and the added security that comes with it. In fact, few global companies have the kind of structure that allows them to respond as quickly and flexibly to changing economic conditions as Bertelsmann – where decentralization, and each entrepreneur’s responsibility for his own sector, is seen as a cornerstone of the corporate culture. To show how Bertelsmann’s businesses in various divisions and countries are dealing with the recession, we print in interview with Joan Tarrida, Head of Publishing, DirectGroup Spain and DirectGroup Portugal.

The global financial and economic crisis is affecting Bertelsmann’s businesses, too – but in very different ways depending on the company or country. Therefore, at each Bertelsmann business, the respective entrepreneurs have to decide locally what measures they are going to take to counter impending or actual revenue declines. And what measures they can use to perhaps even gain additional market share and the added security that comes with it. In fact, few global companies have the kind of structure that allows them to respond as quickly and flexibly to changing economic conditions as Bertelsmann – where decentralization, and each entrepreneur’s responsibility for his own sector, is seen as a cornerstone of the corporate culture. To show how Bertelsmann’s businesses in various divisions and countries are dealing with the recession, today we publish an interview with Ernesto Damião, Head of the Bertrand Book Store Chain, DirectGroup Portugal. 

"We still believe that the book market in Portugal has great potential." With these words Oktay Erciyaz, the head of DirectGroup Portugal, made it clear in which direction the latest decisions will take his company: forward. Erciyaz recently gave an interview to “Expresso,” the country’s foremost weekly paper, in which he outlined specific measures designed to further the company’s development. His conclusion: "There is no reason we should fail - we have strong customer relationships, and we have strong brands."

The global financial and economic crisis is affecting Bertelsmann’s businesses, too – but in very different ways depending on the company or country. Therefore, at each Bertelsmann business, the respective entrepreneurs have to decide locally what measures they are going to take to counter impending or actual revenue declines. And what measures they can use to perhaps even gain additional market share and the added security that comes with it. In fact, few global companies have the kind of structure that allows them to respond as quickly and flexibly to changing economic conditions as Bertelsmann – where decentralization, and each entrepreneur’s responsibility for his own sector, is seen as a cornerstone of the corporate culture. To show how Bertelsmann’s businesses in various divisions and countries are dealing with the recession, we print in interview with Ara Cinar, Managing Director of Club and Diversification Businesses at DirectGroup France.

Lights, camera, action ! And menacing music…Black and white footage shows Nazi storm troopers marching in uniform, proudly carrying flags. Then a caption in Spanish appears: "1936 el mundo al borde del abismo" ("1936, the world stands at the edge of an abyss"). Hitler is shown, followed by images of India in the 1930s - the connection quickly becomes apparent: shortly before World War II, members of the Indian independence movement entered into a pact with Nazi Germany to fight Britain, the colonial power. And the plot is a fictional story set during this time. However, these and the following scenes are not to publicize an exciting movie, but the book “Los ogros del Ganges” (“ The Ogres of the Ganges” ) by Philippe Cavalier. The Spanish book club Círculo de Lectores had announced its first “ Concurso de trailers ” in collaboration with Panasonic. The award is the Spanish counterpart to the German Club’s Book Trailer Award, which was presented for the fourth time this year.

The global financial and economic crisis is affecting Bertelsmann’s businesses, too – but in very different ways depending on the company or country. Therefore, at each Bertelsmann business, the respective entrepreneurs have to decide locally what measures they are going to take to counter impending or actual revenue declines. And what measures they can use to perhaps even gain additional market share and the added security that comes with it. In fact, few global companies have the kind of structure that allows them to respond as quickly and flexibly to changing economic conditions as Bertelsmann – where decentralization, and each entrepreneur’s responsibility for his own sector, is seen as a cornerstone of the corporate culture. To show how Bertelsmann’s businesses in various divisions and countries are dealing with the crisis, here an interview with  Andreas Kaulfuss, CEO of Euromedia Group.

What do Günter Grass, Martin Walser and Amoz Oz have in common with Paulo Coelho, Gerhard Schröder, and Joschka Fischer? They all celebrated their Berlin book premieres on the Blue Sofa of Der Club Bertelsmann, Deutschlandradio Kultur, the ZDF culture magazine "Aspekte" and "Süddeutsche Zeitung." At the premiere of the most recent "Große Berliner Büchernacht," the Blue Sofa again presented the evening's most important authors. Myriam Jochum of the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels explained: "We want to show what literature can do." And the result was excellent: with a true reading marathon, the association opened its traditional trade congress "Buchtage Berlin" (Berlin Book Days), where almost 700 publishers and book dealers meet regularly.

Three categories – three awards: the Czech Euromedia Group can present a flawless result at this year's "Zlatá stuha" ("The Golden Ribbon") book awards. Works from the Czech club and publisher won awards in each category – illustration, literary quality, and translation – of the award for children's and youth books, which has been presented since 1993 by the Czech division of the renowned "International Board On Books For Children."

The global financial and economic crisis is affecting Bertelsmann’s businesses, too – but in very different ways depending on the company or country. Therefore, at each Bertelsmann business, the respective entrepreneurs have to decide locally what measures they are going to take to counter impending or actual revenue declines. And what measures they can use to perhaps even gain additional market share and the added security that comes with it. In fact, few global companies have the kind of structure that allows them to respond as quickly and flexibly to changing economic conditions as Bertelsmann – where decentralization, and each entrepreneur’s responsibility for his own sector, is seen as a cornerstone of the corporate culture. To show how Bertelsmann’s businesses in various divisions and countries are dealing with the crisis, we show an interview with Bernd Schröder, DirectGroup Germany’s Executive Director of Sales, New Member Marketing, Collaborations and Corporate Development.

Oleg Shpilman’s career is a storybook tale of business and entrepreneurship. Shpilman, who holds a degree in English translation, was literally all by himself when he founded the Family Leisure Club (FLC) book club in 2000 with the help of Dutch investors. Today the FLC employs around 1,000 people, with around 600 of them working at the Kharkov headquarters. With nearly two million members, the DirectGroup subsidiary is the largest club in the country. Last year, it sold 16.5 million books in Ukraine and 3.8 million in Russia. These impressive numbers, along with the 400 titles that the FLC released in 2008 alone, make the company the most important publisher in a country that boasts 46 million citizens and the second-largest land area in Europe. Since Bertelsmann came on board, the FLC has managed to significantly increase its revenues and profit each year – on local-currency terms. In recognition of these efforts, the Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce honored the Family Leisure Club’s CEO as the Entrepreneur of the Year in 2006. As part of the “Talking Business” series, the Bertelsmann intranet BeNet spoke with Oleg Shpilman at the FLC headquarters in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkov.

An "uninhibited dialogue between authors and readers" is what the annual Prague Writer's Festival in the Czech Republic’s capital aims to be - and the DirectGroup subsidiary Euromedia has once again made a big contribution so that the 19th staging of the event was able to fulfill this aim. At the beginning of June, the Czech club and publishing house presented a very special guest: the bestselling Canadian author Anne Michaels.

Only twelve weeks had passed from the signing of the lease for the space to the festive opening: the French DirectGroup subsidiary Chapitre.com opened its most recent bookstore in a shopping mall in Tours. With 1,800 square meters, it is the biggest store of the entire chain.

The 54th "International Book Fair" (May 21-24) in Warsaw attracted 53,000 visitors this year, a record number, and this was due in part to the Direct Group subsidiary Swiat Ksiazki. The booth of the Polish club and publisher was a special point of interest for visitors during the trade fair, and it was almost overrun when a very special author, 90 year-old Marek Edelmann, appeared as a guest. Edelmann is the last surviving commander of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943. Trade fair visitors formed long queues and waited for more than three hours to get an autograph from the man whose memoirs "And There Was Love In The Ghetto" were recently published by Swiat Ksiazki.

During the past year, over 100,000 customers from nine countries travelled to Turkey with DirectGroup, experiencing unique holidays in Antalya and taking home memories of the sights of the holiday destinations of Pamukkale, Cappadocia and Denizli. But tourists often forget that traveling has an impact on the environment. In order to take responsibility for the environmental consequences of the travel business on behalf of their customers, DirectGroup, together with its Turkish partner DeHa Tur, launched an afforestation project in Denizli: it plants a tree for every DirectGroup tourist.

Kharkov , the second-largest city in the Ukraine with its population of 1.5 million, is a city in transition. Busy people rush through its streets, there is plenty of construction underway despite the economic downturn, and the city’s appearance has obviously changed drastically over the past few years. Much of what you see, especially the large Lenin memorial on the city’s largest square, still bears witness to a time when Kharkov was one of the biggest metropolises of the Soviet Union. This impression intensifies as one leaves the city center traveling west, in the direction of Kiev. Bumpy streets lead past Soviet-era apartment high-rises, interspersed with the wooden houses that are typical for the Ukraine. Behind them lie small fields or vegetable gardens, while goats nibble away at front-yard meadows. In between, there is plenty of green along with some old industrial settlements and workshops, many of them abandoned and defunct. But a little further along, the picture changes again: a barrier swings up and the visitor comes face to face with a large, modern industrial hall: the Ukrainian Family Leisure Club’s brand-new distribution center.

The 15th "Book World Prague," the most important book show in the Czech Republic, certainly was international: under the lead theme "European Literature" more than 300 publishers presented works by a wide range of authors from 27 EU states and other countries. Euromedia was once more one of the biggest exhibitors at the book fair. Alongside numerous new publications, the DirectGroup club and publishing house presented a number of discussion forums, readings, and autograph sessions with its authors.

From July, bestselling authors Susanne Fröhlich ("Moppel-Ich ") and Richard David Precht ("Who Am I - And If So, How Many ?") will carry out a very special reading promotion for Der Club Bertelsmann’s three million or so members: They will regularly introduce their favorite books in the monthly catalogs. Der Club called the Authors Council into being over ten years ago with Walter Kempowski, Tanja Kinkel and Gaby Hauptmann.

"Nothing beats home cooking" according to popular wisdom - so it was always likely that the best recipes would be discovered in domestic kitchens. Where else would you find tried and tested family recipes passed down from one generation to the next? This was what DirectGroup's program managers thought when it launched its cookbook project in 2004. It has since celebrated successes in Germany and France and is now enjoying great popularity in Italy as well.

The thing that sticks out most in my memory? Difficult question. Sky du Mont, perhaps. Apparently I wasn’t comfortable enough for him that time he jumped up in the middle of the conversation – and didn’t come back. But of course, it may also have been because he had just had a bit of a showdown with the ZDF TV presenter Luzia Braun. That was before the cameras were running, and not in front of an audience. But I was there. I was always there: at the premiere of Günter Grass’s book “Peeling the Onion,” when he spoke for the first time in public about his Waffen SS membership; when Reiner Langhans’s graphic description of his love stories made the presenter blush – and not just her either; when rock band “Ärzte” singer Farin Urlaub talked about his trip to India in unusually serious tones. Allow me to introduce myself: I’m Der Club Bertelsmann’s Blue Sofa. And I must be honest: my career as a celebrity was rather an accident.

What on earth is a "book face"? The answer: Someone who regards a book as much more than a bound collection of printed pages; someone who not only likes to read books but also discuss them. With this kind of reader in mind, DirectGroup Germany launched the new "Buchgesichter" ("Book Faces") online community. The Website offers bookworms a platform where they can do things like rate books, write reviews and chat with like-minded people. www.buchgesichter.de was live since the beginning of March and already has over 1,000 members.

Seven at one stroke only happens in fairy tales. Seven at two strokes, however, does occasionally happen in reality as the Slovakian publisher Ikar has now proven. The employees of the DirectGroup subsidiary celebrated a string of awards last week—seven in total—at two different award presentations.

It’s not a bank holiday, but since 1995 Apr 23 has been an international day of celebration nevertheless. It is observed by millions of people, especially booklovers. 14 years ago UNESCO announced that April 23rd would be a day for bookworms every year - World Book Day. And so around the world today under this year’s motto of “Here. There. Everywhere” various DirectGroup companies are mounting a variety of promotions to raise awareness of how important books are and how essential it is to read.

The final tribute to a great author came as a big surprise - and as a cause for celebration for the Czech Club and the Euromedia publishing house. Author Jirí Šimon, who wrote for the "Book Club" until his death in December 2008, has been posthumously honored with the “Readers’ Choice Award” for best book of the year for his work "Ukradený domov" (roughly translated as “Stolen Home”) in the prestigious Magnesia Litera competition.

The autograph session last Tuesday in one of the Austrian club's "Donauland" shops in Vienna lasted longer than planned. As usual, Andrea Berg took a lot of time for her fans. This time, however, she showed up without the helicopter that matches the album's title and that the artist is currently using to promote her new album "Zwischen Himmel & Erde" ("Between Heaven & Earth"). Unfortunately, the helicopter could not land at Vienna's Donauzentrum shopping mall, but Andrea Berg immediately hit it off with her fans anyway. Long before the autograph session was to begin, numerous "Donauland" members were waiting for the sympathetic singer to arrive. And she thanked them by fulfilling the wishes of every single one of them and made sure they all went home happily with a signed album, poster, or photograph of the artist.

Every year, the Polish DirectGroup subsidiary Swiat Ksiazki invites authors, staff, and close business associates to a party. This year’s party marked a special occasion: the Polish club and publishing house celebrated its 15th birthday. Over 200 guests attended the event, including bestselling Polish writers Hanna Krall, Teresa Toranska, Jerzy Pilch and Janusz Glowacki. They were joined by literary critics, publishers, diplomats and, of course, the editors, translators and printers who work for or with Swiat Ksiazki.

"Many personalities from literature and politics have sat on the 'Blue Sofa' - and they all had a book with them." TV presenter Wolfgang Herles opened Monday evening’s conversation with Germany’s foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier by looking back at Günter Grass, Gerhard Schröder and Joschka Fischer, whose new books were also presented on Der Club’s famous piece of furniture. Steinmeier had been invited to introduce his new book, "My Germany. What I stand" (C. Bertelsmann Verlag) in a sold-out 90-minute event at the Berliner Ensemble theater.

Optimized search functions, multilinguality, and the ability to manage as many as 50,000 items on a single server – “aconon@shop,” a Web application by the DirectGroup subsidiary Nionex has won over an independent panel of experts with its merits: At the official presentation of the “Affiliate Awards” last week, the IT services company took third place in the “Affiliate Tools” category for its online shop management tool.

Last month, Swiat Ksiazki, the Polish Club and publishing house, celebrated the 87th birthday of its star author, Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, with a festive reception. Bartoszewski, a historian, journalist and politician, is one of the country’s best-known personalities. As a young man, he was incarcerated in the Auschwitz extermination camp during 1940/41. In 1944 he took part in the Warsaw Uprising, and spent six years in prison after the war because of his anti-Stalinist views. Bartoszewski was rehabilitated in 1955 and went on to make a name for himself as the author of many historical works. In 1980 he was involved in the Solidarity trade union movement, and was imprisoned again. After the fall of the Iron Curtain, Bartoszewski went on to become the Polish ambassador in Vienna, and Poland’s foreign minister, among other things. Today he advises the government on issues of German-Polish relations.

"‘Leipzig liest’ (‘Leipzig Reads’) once again presents a very diverse program." It sounds a lot like an advertising slogan, and was in fact said by Leipzig Book Fair director Oliver Zille, who admittedly has a mandate to market "his" event. However, one look at the hard facts shows that Zille could be accused of almost making an understatement. This year’s fair features no less than 1,900 events with over 1,500 authors at more than 300 different venues - and with nine event series of its own – three at the fair, and six in the city centre – Club Bertelsmann in 2009 is once again making a literary statement in Leipzig.

129,000 visitors, 2,345 exhibitors from 39 countries, and more than 2,700 journalists providing detailed coverage – the Leipzig Book Fair is the season’s most important meeting for the book and media industry, and last year’s convention was a resounding success by any measure. It will soon be seen whether the 2009 show, which opens today, can surpass even this high bar. The trade show opens its doors for four days, and both Verlagsgruppe Random House and Club Bertelsmann will be on hand to show professionals and lay people alike what they will contribute to the current year’s “springtime of reading.”

For 23 years “Télé-Loisirs,” one of the biggest and most successful magazines published by G+J’s French subsidiary Prisma Presse, has been far more than "just" a TV guide to its many hundreds of thousands of readers. Every week, for example, they look forward to their own travel section packed with tips and information on the travel best destinations on earth. After only giving its readers the travel bug in the past, "Télé-Loisirs" is now doing something about curing it. Yesterday, it launched a comprehensive online travel agency at www.tl-vacances.fr. Here, the Prisma Press magazine joins the tour operator Voyages Loisirs, a subsidiary of DirectGroup's France Loisirs, is offering users over 1,500 destinations on attractive terms – thereby importing the strengths of the brand to a new business sector.

Librerías Bertrand, the Spanish book store chain of DirectGroup, opened its new flagship store in Barcelona with a ceremony on Tuesday evening. With almost 1,500 square meters and about 140,000 books in Spanish and Catalan, the store is one of Spain's biggest book stores. 800 guests from the Spanish book and media industry as well as culture and politics accepted Bertrand's Managing Director Sven Huber's and DirectGroup CEO Fernando Carro's invitation to the opening.  

TV recordings, press conferences, signature sessions, theater premieres: this is what the schedule of a bestselling author looks like when traveling abroad – or at least when he is a guest of the Czech club and publishing house Euromedia. This honor was bestowed upon the French science fiction writer and club author Bernard Werber at the end of February on his first visit to the Central European country.
Right after his arrival in Prague on February 25, the 48 year-old author was a guest on the TV show "Události v kulture" (Events in Culture). On the following day he answered journalists' questions at a press conference organized by the DirectGroup subsidiary. The focus of interest there was his book "Les Thanatonautes" (The Thanatonauts), which was first published in 1994; the Czech club and publishing house will publish it in May of this year in the Czech Republic.

Making hospital stays for children with cancer somewhat more comfortable is the objective of an exemplary relief project initiated by employees from the Polish club and the publisher Swiat Ksiazki. During a meeting of the so-called "Talent Group," a group of high potentials of the DirectGroup subsidiary, they initiated the project after deciding that they wanted to realize a joint corporate social responsibility (CSR) project. "In the end we came up with the idea of combining a just cause and culture and supporting an already existing institution that has clearly defined needs," explained Agata Platek, a member of the Talent Group along with Marek Awsiukiewicz, Danuta Gornicka, Monika Koch, Michal Pawlas, Adam Sliwinski, Monika Warzywoda, Waldemar Wasiak, and Hanna Zych.

Holidays between sand dunes and forests in Verdon-sur-Mer for €544 a week? Or perhaps a €714 trip to Adge with all its beguiling history? Or perhaps Castelmoron? Anyone who’s caught the travel bug now has a new place to turn to for information and booking services in France: the travel portal “Femme Actuelle Vacances.” Just as people are starting to plan their summer holidays, Prisma Presse’s flagship “Femme Actuelle” has joined forces with Voyages Loisirs, the travel arm of the French club.

Too many used books? No more room on the shelf? Chucking your used books in the bin is one way to deal with the situation – but not necessarily the most circumspect of options. It’s a good thing that France Loisirs and the “Secours Populaire Francais” charity offer an alternative, at least in France. In January, for the fourth consecutive year, they collected used books to be distributed to the needy.

It’s become a cherished tradition – so why break with it? DirectGroup’s Swiat Ksiazki had the most bestsellers of any publisher in the first half of 2008, it was the top imprint in 2007, and did brilliantly the year before as well. Accordingly, the latest announcement doesn’t come as much of a surprise: Swiat Ksiazki dominates the just-published ranking of Poland’s bestselling books in 2008. The noted Polish daily “Rzeczpospolita” lists no fewer than 13 titles published by Swiat Ksiazki, more than any other publisher in Poland.

“This is a fantastic result, even better than last year,” enthuses Swiat Ksiazki’s managing director Heike Rosener. “Our position as market leader remains undisputed.” The club’s excellent performance is all the more impressive when you learn that the books sold online through the Polish club were factored out of the newspaper’s ranking .

The monthly Polish literary magazine "Magazyn Literacki Ksiazki" can best be described as “small but nice.” The influential trade magazine presents its "Book of the Month" award in each issue. For book dealers in the country, it is an important indicator of future sales. In the current issue of "Magazyn Literacki Ksiazki" two authors of the DirectGroup publisher Swiat Ksiazki, Marek Nowakowski and Jerzy Pilch, are honored with the coveted award.

What’s the difference between book presentations and film premieres? The latter usually take place on a grand scale, with a  star-studded guest list  and excited discussions - the former generally occur in quiet. But that isn’t always the case: last Thursday Germany’s Club Bertelsmann, together with Club France Loisirs, took the opportunity to present a very special book to 650 influential intellectuals, politicians and entrepreneurs. 

The French bookseller Chapitre.com is now a wholly owned subsidiary of DirectGroup France. Yesterday, the Bertelsmann company headed by Jörg Hagen announced that it had taken over the remaining 50.5 percent of the shares in Chapitre.com.

Bestsellers at half price, and free shipping and handling – it’s a dream come true for any bookworm. The DirectGroup subsidiary Bertelsmann Media is offering exactly that through a new online shop launched in Switzerland in June 2008. Fiction, audiobooks, nonfiction, children's books, guides – over 300 bestsellers are available at robinbook.ch at 50 percent reductions.  

The Polish book club Swiat Ksiazki has been nominated for the "Solid Employer of the Year" award, which – like in the past years – the Media Partner Group presents in 2009 as well. The Media Partner Group publishes business supplements, among others for the big daily newspapers "Gazeta Prawna" and "Rzeczpospolita."

"Treinta obras para recordar" – 30 literary works to remember. The Spanish daily newspaper "El País" published a list of the 30 best books of the year 2008 ("Los mejores libros de 2008") in Spain at the end of December. The publisher Galaxia Gutenberg, which is part of Círculo de Lectores, is represented with a total of five titles; no other publisher has as many titles on the list.

This is definitely an excellent way to end the year: Hanna Krall and Artur Domoslawski, both authors of the Polish book club and the publisher Swiat Ksiazki, have received prestigious awards for their work in December.

It is a success story to be proud of: just over 18 years ago, after the dismantling of the “Iron Curtain,” ten people got together in Slovakia, then still part of Czechoslovakia, to set up a new, independent publishing house. Since then, Ikar, as the publishing house was named, has come of age and long since established itself as the country’s largest publishing house: reason enough for Ikar to celebrate its birthday last Wednesday with a party in Bratislava. Some 200 guests - authors, employees, business associates and media representatives – followed the publisher’s invitation to the historic Philharmonic building in the heart of the Slovak capital.

Der Club Bertelsmann has been honoring young filmmakers who create the best short advertising films for its club premieres with its "Buch Trailer Award" ("Book Trailer Award") since 2006, and it gets a lot of recognition for this intelligent and appealing form of advertising. "Die Welt" recently praised the club as a "pioneer" with regard to book trailers in a big article in the feature pages. Last Thursday evening the club presented the "Book Trailer Award 2008" at the Bertelsmann Representative Offices Unter den Linden 1 in Berlin.

Since April 2008, the renowned publisher Editora Pergaminho is part of DirectGroup Portugal. Its portfolio of authors includes one of literature’s superstars Paulo Coelho in the fiction area, the Dalai Lama in mind/body/spirit, and Erich Fromm and Edward De Bono in the field of psychology.

Last week, the Círculo de Lectores book club’s cultural significance for Spain was underlined once again when Tzvetan Todorov, an author signed with the Círculo de Lectores imprint Galaxia Gutenberg, accepted the prestigious 2008 Prince of Asturias Award in Social Sciences last Friday. At the awards ceremony in Oviedo, the judges gave their reasons for picking the French-Bulgarian philosopher/writer as this year’s winner: “He represents the spirit of unity in Europe, between East and West, as well as the ideals of freedom, equality, integration and justice.“

In Spain, the "Salón Kosmópolis" is considered a top caliber literary event. Every two years, renowned authors meet at the Centro de Cultura Contemporánea in Barcelona to discuss the challenges of our time. This year, an unusually large number of authors from the publisher Galaxia Gutenberg, which is part of Círculo de Lectores, were among the authors invited to the event, which is one more sign of the outstanding cultural importance of the club and publisher in Spain. The DirectGroup subsidiary was represented by the Chinese Nobel Prize winner Gao Xinjiang, the Bulgarian author Tzvetan Todorov, the Israeli journalist Amira Hass, the Russian Arkadi Babchenko and the Bosnian Emir Sulgajic.

The statuette is a miniature version of the Franz Kafka monument in Prague - and a cause for celebration for the Czech DirectGroup subsidiary Euromedia. Coinciding with the publication of his latest novel through the club and publishing house, the Euromedia author Arnošt Lustig has just won the Franz Kafka Prize. "A man needs recognition in his life," said the 82-year-old author at the award ceremony in Prague. "I am extremely happy and deeply grateful for this honor."

A premiere in France: for the first time in the country's history, France Loisirs exclusively offered an e-book online for 72 hours as a free download before the launch of the print edition. The campaign was well received: more than half of all of the online users who made their way to the site took advantage of the free download option. A total of 10,600 readers downloaded the digital version of "Un chien nommé Noel" legally and free of charge.

t was one of the highlights of the Czech cultural scene this fall: authors, cultural critics and almost 200 journalists filled the historic Kaiserstejnsky Palace in Prague's old town when the DirectGroup subsidiary Euromedia's sought-after "Book Club Literary Prize" was presented there recently. The winner of this year’s award, which the club and publisher presented for the 13^th time, is Czech author Martin Sichinger. His debut novel "The Sugar Clown" beat out 60 other thus far unpublished manuscripts.

Medienshop.de, an online service of the DirectGroup subsidiary Nionex, is expanding its program range in cooperation with the readers' service of Deutsche Post by 4,500 national and international magazine titles. With this project, the online shop, which already offers books, films, and music CDs, strengthens its market position. In return, the readers' service of Deutsche Post will add the book catalog of medienshop.de to its program.  

Good news from the “Bestsellers” desk at the Polish daily “Rzeczpospolita” for the Polish book club and Swiat Ksiazki imprint: Eight of the titles on the influential paper’s half-year bestseller lists were published by the DirectGroup subsidiary. Every six months, the paper lists the Top 15 titles of the past half-year in three categories: Polish literature, foreign literature and nonfiction.

At the invitation of Der Club Bertelsmann, the Spanish embassy, and the embassy of Portugal, four top caliber European politicians and scientists met last Tuesday to discuss European impulses towards the humanization of globalization during the club's book premiere "Europe as a light house? An Iberian dialog in a European and global context" at the Bertelsmann Representative Offices in Berlin.

It doesn't always take a big project to change something. As far as paper consumption at the office is concerned, every employee can contribute to reducing the company's consumption of resources. A group of employees at the Polish book club Swiat Ksiazki had the same idea. In one of their regular meetings they wanted to draft a project in which everyone could participate, and they quickly agreed on conservation.

This year’s Swiat Ksiazki stand at the Warsaw Book Fair once again turned out to be a top-notch audience magnet. Small wonder, considering DirectGroup’s Polish subsidiary gave Polish book lovers more than 20 opportunities to see some of the country’s most popular and best-known authors, live.

Life in Cuba from the perspective of a young girl: Wendy Guerra, a Cuban author, writes diary-style about her country’s day-to-day misery under the Castro regime. “They All Leave” is the title of her book, published in the Czech Republic by the DirectGroup subsidiary Euromedia Group as “Všichni odcházejí.” The writer recently paid a visit to Euromedia in Prague.

The bestselling author Robin Cook visited the Slovakian club and publisher Ikar in Bratislava last Monday to promote his new book. With 700,000 sold books, Cook is one of the most popular authors in Slovakia. His specialty is medical thrillers, which is understandable since the American writer is not only an author but also a doctor.

385 publishing houses exhibited their work at the Prague Book Fair, the Czech Republic’s most important book expo, from Apr 24-27. Euromedia, a DirectGroup publishing house, was once again one of the biggest exhibitors at Book World Prague, which this year attracted a record 34,000 visitors. Euromedia presented a series of discussion, forums, readings and book signings alongside its numerous new titles. The greatest interest of the expert visitors was for the events with Tereza Boucková and Adolf Burger.

At the end of 2005, the Ukrainian business Family Leisure Club (FLC) started to feel the pressure. Growth had been so rapid that space at its warehouses is beginning to get tight. No wonder, considering the company had expanded its annual shipments from 3.3 million units in 2004 to 8.5 million in 2006. Nor could the old warehouses, which were scattered to three locations, be expanded. FLC CEO Oleg Shpilman and the DirectGroup board decided to instead set up a new, state-of-the-art facility.

DirectGroup Benelux, based in Vianen, has been winning market shares in online media retail with its online book and media shop cosmox.nl. Apart from this, Oktay Erciyaz’s team has now given an old bookstore a facelift under the new Cosmox brand, in the process lifting a pure online brand into the offline world. Erciyaz explains: “The concept puts two novel elements into practice: The Clicks & Bricks approach lets customers order online and pick up their orders offline at the store. And: any item not in stock at the media shop may be ordered online, with free shipping to any address in the Netherlands.” The second item involves the sales model. The Cosmox shop works with two wholesalers who handle the stocking, and hence bear the inventory risk for the range. Meanwhile, the online platform continues to evolve: besides advancing the underlying technology, Cosmox is now marketing a white-label solution, “powered by Cosmox,” to other companies as well – its Bertelsmann sister RTL Nederland has already bought a license for the Cosmox platform, as has a Dutch Daily paper.

Spiegel Wissen is the joint product of two experts: one is the DirectGroup company Wissen Media as one of Europe’s leading popular-science publishers, the other is Spiegel Net GmbH, the highly acclaimed news magazine and number-one news site on the German Internet. Together, they set up “Spiegel Wissen,” a multimedia research portal that draws on an extensive content supply: entries in Bertelsmann’s various encyclopedias, the complete archives of Spiegel magazine since 1947, as well as Manager Magazin, Spiegel Online and manager-magazin.de. This information is rounded off with content from the free encyclopedia Wikipedia. The site is free for all users and is financed by advertising.

This year’s "Danubius," the coveted nonfiction book award of the Austrian club Donauland, goes to mathematician Rudolf Taschner. The jury of the annual award honors the scientist's most recent book entitled "Zahl. Zeit. Zufall. Alles Erfindung?" ("Numbers. Time. Coincidence. All an invention?") According to the jury, the author succeeded in presenting the rather difficult subject of mathematics in a way that appealed to many new readers. Since its publication the book has been represented on the country's bestseller lists without interruption.

An increasing number of people use the possibility of online shopping to order media products. The demand for well designed and user friendly e-commerce shops is high. Medienshop.de by Nionex is such an online shop, and it has a history of success. Launched at the occasion of the 2006 FIFA World Cup, Medienshop.de first was intended as a sales shop for FIFA license products of Bertelsmann companies. Since then, the number of media products being offered has expanded to approximately 650,000.

Hours upon hours spent gridlocked in traffic jams. Annoying music on the radio. The same CD, over and over. Bored and whining children on the back seats. A little R & R right about now would be welcome. A good book… But where to find one on the road? Perhaps at the next gas station. In Portugal, at least, that will soon be possible. Following a successful pilot, the bookstore chain Bertrand, a DirectGroup subsidiary since summer of 2006, is opening its own little bookstores in 80 gas stations across the country. Bertrand’s partner is the oil and gas company GALP.

Whether you’re taking pictures, putting them together in albums or archiving them – the modern world of photography is digital. Now Wissen Media Verlag sets out to conquer one of the last strongholds of analog photography: historical photographs. The DirectGroup subsidiary is partnering with its Internet portal Wissen.de to launch a photo community called “Chroniknet,” a kind of digital historical family album. Registered members of the new Community, currently online as a beta at www.chroniknet.de , can scan in family photos from the olden days, enter them in the database and index them by assigning detailed tags. Users can decide whether the photos are to be made public or whether access will granted only to a limited group of users. The free offering is aimed at professional and amateur history buffs, genealogists and photographers.

Practically immediately after being re-elected President of the Czech Republic by a small margin, following a gripping three-round election, Václav Klaus has taken stock of his fifth year in office. He did so in a book published through his regular publisher, Euromedia Group. Last week, a few days after Klaus’s re-election, the Direct Group subsidiary presented his new book “Rok páty” (The Fifth Year), and also hosted the once and future president at the club and publishing premises on Wenzelsplatz in Prague. Klaus gave a speech about his book and gladly signed it for readers standing in line.

The Czech Republic has plenty of reasons to celebrate this year's Oscars. First, when the winners of the world's most important film awards were announced a few day ago in Los Angeles, they included Czech musician and singer Markéta Irglová, who won an award for her song “Falling Slowly” from the soundtrack to “Once” (Sony BMG). And second, the Austrian production “Die Fälscher” (The Counterfeiters) won the award for Best Foreign Language Film. The movie based on the memoirs of Adolf Burger, now over 90, who has lived in Prague for decades and published his book by the same name through Euromedia, DirectGroup’s Czech subsidiary.

Literature awards and bestseller lists are the measures of success for a book. The ultimate satisfaction for a publisher – but certainly not par for the course – is when a title is graced with both. The Polish club Swiat Ksiazki currently has several such peak performers: The Direct Group subsidiary has nine books on the country’s Annual Bestseller List for 2007, while simultaneously pulling in five literature awards. Both underline Swiat Ksiazki’s position as the No.1 publisher in the Polish bookseller market – and that, in the words of Bertelsmann Media Poland’s CEO Heike Rosener, “after a tough, intensely competitive year.”

It's common knowledge that conventional business is increasingly relying on the Internet for sales. By contrast, it is rather unusual that a business that was initially available only on the Internet takes to pedestrian zones in the form of bricks-and-mortar branches – which is what’s happened in the case of the online shop Cosmox.nl , part of the Dutch ECI Book Club. Its Web-based business has been so successful that Cosmox now wants to reach clients directly. On Wednesday, it opened its first shop in the pedestrian shopping zone in the northern Dutch community of Alkmaar .

Anyone passing through  Antwerp ’s central train station yesterday couldn’t help but notice the Belgian book club ECI. The DirectGroup subsidiary had mounted a huge PR promotion at the station – an enormous bookshelf and a cozy, living room-style reading corner – to draw people’s attention to the book club’s modernization and relaunch in  Belgium . At the heart of ECI’s new concept are the ideas of “convenience” and “a good deal.” In practice, they translate to more customer friendliness, better service and a bigger product range, as well as paying more attention to non-members. This was reflected in the theme of the event in  Antwerp – “ECI – Your personal recreation coach” – which positions the club as a top destination for book purchases, as well as for other products such as computer and console games. ECI gave away 10,000 books to passers-by, and travelers with time on their hands were invited to relax for a while in the ECI Book Nook, and put into practice the slogan “Give yourself a break – you’ve earned it.”

“Write your own thriller” was the motto of the contest mounted by the Dutch book club ECI in a quest for new writing talent. The club found it in the person of Marc Winters, 40, the undisputed winner of the online contest. Together with other applicants, he wrote the thriller now unveiled by ECI: “Two Dragons” will be published by the DirectGroup imprint “The House of Books.”

The pictures of fans of all ages eagerly awaiting the next Harry Potter book are similar no matter what part of the world they’re taken in. Most fans in  America ,  England and  Germany already know what happened to the young wizard in his latest, greatest adventure – but their counterparts in  Slovakia are still looking forward to it – or are already in the middle of finding out. “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” – or rather, “Harry Potter a Dary Smrti” as the book is called in Slovakian – has just been published by the Slovakian publishing company Ikar. And as in other countries, the event gave rise to the familiar pictures of people with shining eyes dressed up in robes wizard’s hats, flocking to big parties to be the first to get their hands on the new book.

Circulo de Leitores is pleased to report that one of its authors has just won a prestigious literary award. Irene Pimentel, who has published three books through the Portuguese club to date, is a recipient of the 2007 Pessoa Award.

Few people have the opportunity to celebrate their 100^th birthday. Slovak Vilma Jamnicka is one of them, and she is far from being tired of life. In her book entitled "Man of my Life," which has just been published by the Slovak DirectGroup subsidiary Ikar, she writes about her relationship with her husband, Jan Jamnicky, with plenty of wisdom and humor. In his home country, he was famous as a theater director and actor.

What was already united since the middle of last year has also been integrated in day-to-day business since October: the employees of Circulo de Leitores and the bookstore chain Livraria Bertrand are now working side by side in the office complex in Lisbon. In June 2006 the Portuguese DirectGroup subsidiary took over Bertrand, Portugal's biggest and most renowned bookstore chain. The employees of the club and Bertrand had a party to celebrate the official move into the new building.

In recent years, Noah Gordon’s bestsellers have provided many a delicious hour of reading for members of Spain’s Círculo de Lectores. Recently, the Spanish Club, a DirectGroup subsidiary, hosted a special event for its members: just in time for the worldwide publication of his new novel “La bodega,” the American novelist visited the branches in Madrid and Barcelona. He and the Spanish writer Julia Navarro spoke to sell-out crowds about his new novel and the life of a bestselling author.

More flexible club membership terms including cancellation within a month, easier online and offline shopping, the addition of computer games to the product range, an enhanced bonus program for longstanding members, sales of regular bookstore editions and, last not least, a complete redesign of the logo, magazine, Internet homepage and ECI shops – these are the modifications that will spearhead a “revolutionary change of course” for the Dutch book club under the heading “Typically ECI.” The DirectGroup subsidiary is undergoing this extensive transformation in an effort to better cater to market developments and customer wishes.

Almost 130,000 Ukrainians are currently living in Germany; however, very few of them are able to find books to read in their native tongue here. The CEO of the Ukrainian Family Leisure Club (FLC), Oleg Shpilman, has now used a meeting with Igor Dolgov, Ukraine’s Ambassador to Germany, during the Bertelsmann party at the Representative Offices Unter den Linden 1, to remedy this situation. In order to promote the culture and language of the Eastern European country among fellow countrymen living abroad, both intend to cooperate in the distribution of Ukrainian literature in the relevant countries.

In his native Poland,  Lech Walesa, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and founder of the “Solidarnosc ” union, is the political figure that most people identify with. Now he speaks out on the current situation in Polish politics in a new book. “My Third Republic of Poland” is a collection of interviews with the country’s former president, in which he describes the explosive situation in his homeland. The Polish publishing company Swiat Ksiazki, a DirectGroup subsidiary, is publishing Walesa’s first written work in sixteen years. The book garnered a great deal of media attention even before its publication, which is well timed indeed with two weeks remaining until  Poland holds its parliamentary elections.

DirectGroup  France is acquiring a minority stake in Praxiel, a group specializing in the design and market launch of software for cultural products. The two partners have signed a strategic agreement to this effect. Praxiel group will retain its economic autonomy and will continue to be managed by its founders; DirectGroup France will draw on Praxiel’s expertise to strengthen its bookselling network, encompassing Privat, Forum Alsatia and Place Media. DirectGroup reports that the agreement has no implications for the club business, in particular for France Loisirs.

In September, the Ukrainian book club “Family Leisure Club” (FLC), a DirectGroup subsidiary, was the center of attention at the country’s biggest book fair. Mostly thanks to its commitment to “Bookmania 2007,” an initiative to encourage reading among children, but also thanks to its efforts to establish a new culture of reading in the Ukraine. To top things off, the club won an award when the Ukrainian version of the “Bertelsmann Children’s Encyclopedia of Countries” (Wissen Media Verlag) was commended by judges for its educational value for young readers.

In the Czech Republic, the “Book Club Literary Prize” awarded by the DirectGroup subsidiary Euromedia is regarded as one of the country’s most prestigious and sought-after literary awards. The book club/publisher has now awarded its 12^th Book Club Literary Prize for young authors, which comes with 50,000 Czech crowns (approx. €1800 or $2500) in prize money. The awards ceremony at  Kaiserstejnsky   Palace in  Prague ’s historic city center was attended by well-known authors from the Czech literary scene, cultural critics and journalists among others. This year’s prizewinner is Jiri Sulc, who won the award for his first book, “Dva proti Risi” (roughly: “Two against the Reich”).

Last year already Swiat Ksiazki distinguished itself by having the most titles among the Polish half-year and annual bestsellers selected by "Rzeczpospolita,"  Poland 's renowned daily newspaper. Now, Swiat Ksiazki has taken the first step to secure this top position for the Polish club and publisher in 2007 as well: the DirectGroup subsidiary is leading the half-year bestseller list of "Rzeczpospolita" with a total of eleven titles; the list includes the 15 bestselling books in the categories Polish fiction, international fiction, and nonfiction. Heike Rosener, CEO of Swiat Ksiazki: "Despite the fact that we have been a publisher for only a short time, we consistently rank number one both on the annual and half-year lists."