Soooo here’s how it went: about a year ago bruno asked me to write a series of articles for Laguna~B’s online magazine. What came out was a bunch of weird explorations into different corners of the publishing world. Something halfway between a guide and a set of thoughts about how we read, how we choose (or don’t choose) books, and all that.
Since I’m a big fan of applying theory to basically everything, I put some fake-but-rigorous science to work. The result is a tiny book, published in two versions (English and Italian with a preface by the king @federico_a_antonini ) that might help you navigate the world of publishing while also confusing you a little more.
You can take it as a meme-longform but also as a way for me to embrace my normiecore side. No worship of books, no cringe rhetoric (well, maybe a little bit) about becoming a better, enlightened Umberto-Eco-type person, just insights and jokes I picked up from working with and selling books.
You can find both versions at bruno’s physical and online store (chances are if you order it, I’ll be the one packing it, hello darkness my old frieeend), and in bookstores that carry bruno titles.
In the pictures: six incredible places where you didn’t know you had already encountered the book.
Against Coffee Table Books edited/a cura di Davide Tolfo, preface/prefazione by Federico Antonini
Originally published in 2025 in Laguna~B’s online magazine as a series of six articles, Against Coffee Table Books positions itself as a clear, straightforward, and honest guide to navigating the complex world of contemporary publishing. Or rather, everything that orbits around books: from their formats and modes of display to how we collect them and the ways we read them. To explore these questions, we turned to little-known and experimental sciences—the Readers’ Entomology, the Ethology of Bookshelves, among others—which allowed us to tackle philosophical and existential questions such as: why do we buy more books than we read? Originariamente pubblicato nel 2025 sul magazine digitale di Laguna~B come una serie di sei articoli, Against Coffee Table Books si propone come una guida – trasparente, diretta e sincera–per navigare i complessi e intricati universi dell’editoria contemporanea. O, meglio, tutto ciò che gravita attorno ai libri: dal loro formato a come posizionarli, dalle modalità di accumularli ai diversi metodi per leggerli. Per farlo ci siamo affidati a scienze poco note e sperimentali – l’entomologia dei lettori, l’etologia delle librerie, per citarne solo alcune – che ci hanno permesso di affrontare questioni esistenziali e filosofiche come: perché compriamo più libri di quanti ne leggiamo?
The book is available in Italian and English/ Il libro è disponibile sia in italiano che in inglese
Exocapitalism (2025) was first presented in London by Marek Poliks, one of the two authors of the book, at King's College London. The first presentation of Exocapitalism by both authors, Roberto Alonso Trillo included, was in Venice, just one week later. This presentation of the book was situated in Becoming Press' first conference—Πάμε Βενετία—a series of literary events which was made possible in part due to one person in particular, one Davide Tolfo, the bookseller and host of a really beautiful book store and design studio tucked away in the labyrinth of Dorsoduro, Venice, @books.bruno
Davide is also a writer, translator and editor, and has worked on or as a part of many publications through outlets such as Nero Editions and N. O. T., the latter of which initiated and co-organized this interview with Marek Poliks and Roberto Alonso Trillo on Exocapitalism.
Having already met, then, a few weeks earlier, the authors caught up with Davide and recorded this interview. The interview was co-edited by all parties in order for the Italian translation to be produced for publication with N. O. T. & Nero. This is the final, edited English version before it was translated.
The full interview can be read on our website at: https://becoming.press/
Thank you Marek, Roberto and Davide.
nobody deserves a 4-pages interview about the death of accelerationism, but if you’re tired of the endless spawning of new theses on the end of capitalism which (surprise surprise) never comes, you can find on NOTSFERA (link in bio) a conversation with @trillo.roberto and @dis.integrator about their stunning book Exocapitalism, published this year by @becoming.press
Huuuge thanks to @sauza.uridimmu for the editing ⚔️
second image taken from @earthlyeducation and @earthlyguy
must be the season of the anguane
On NERO magazine I wrote a few things about Aganis by Chiara Cecconello.
It was also the perfect chance to finally write about the anguane, creatures from Veneto folk horror that I learned to link with forests thanks to my grandmother’s stories.
So thanks, granny, for telling me that rocky caves might just be the place where you’d run into women who devour men 💅
Link in bio ⚔️
My sleep paralysis demon is a massive, twitching hyrax. Its idea of “good morning” is a scream hurled straight into my soul: “Wake up, you filthy slab of meat—dreams are to be cultivated, not inherited!”
Every single dawn it orchestrates an operatic collapse at the edge of my bed, proclaiming that rest only counts if it equals oblivion—but to reach that point, you must earn your fatigue, by spiraling headfirst into the lair of the howling fur-beast. And its eyes—oh God, those oblique, moralizing eyes—do nothing but judge and audit my being.
They know I once believed sleep could be a hiding place, a warm blanket-fort tucked away from reality.
But every time I try to crawl under that illusion, the hyrax starts howling with cosmic precision:
“Sleep when you’re dead.”
@viagraboys
Post serio in cui annuncio che ho avuto il piacere di tradurre per NERO Sonic Warfare di Steve Goodman (Kode9). È un libro a cui sono molto legato, un testo-portale: uno di quei libri che, letti dopo la laurea, mi hanno mostrato che era possibile scrivere e fare filosofia senza per forza scimmiottare la postura accademica. Era troppo presto per la tanto temuta parola “theory”, ma insomma era quella cosa lì. Anche perché Goodman riprende Virilio, Massumi, Attali, Serres e una serie di altr_ teoric_, che assieme a Semiotext(e), costituivano il Soulseek speculativo di chi proveniva dalla filosofia francese contemporanea. Rileggendo Sonic Warfare a distanza di anni ho notato una serie di cose che, nel frattempo, sono diventate più evidenti agli occhi di tutt_e più inquietanti. Coincidenza vuole che le prime righe del libro portino come esempio l’impiego di armi sonore da parte dell’esercito israeliano sulla striscia di Gaza nel lontano 2005. E nel frattempo il controllo e l’abuso del suono è diventato così esplicito che la creazione di loop musicali e meme vocali creati appositamente per funzionare come earworm sono alla base delle piattaforme che usiamo per il nostro scroll quotidiano (ve lo immaginate un TikTok silenzioso?).
Ma queste e altre felici questioni potete rivolgerle direttamente a Goodman, dato che a fine di questo mese farà un tour di presentazioni del libro. Il libro esce fra una settimana ma è già in pre-order sul sito di NERO.
