71. Diary of a Tuscan Bookshop | Alba Donati

translated from the italian by elena pala

'Romano, I'd like to open a bookshop where I live.'
'Right. How many people are we talking about?'
'A hundred and eighty.'
'Right, so if a hundred and eighty thousand people live there, then . . .'
'No, not hundred and eighty thousand, Romano. Just a hundred and eighty.'
'Alba . . . Have you lost your mind?'
Conversation between Alba Donati and Romano Montroni, founder of Italy's largest bookselling chain

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Friends,

Are you in need of a nourishing feel-good read that feels just like a hug (in book form)? Set in the small Tuscan hills town of Lucignana¹, Alba Donati writes of her decision to leave behind a hectic life as a book publicist in Florence and open a tiny bookshop in the small town where she was born. Translated from the Italian by Elena Pala², in the style of a personal diary or journal, each day a summary of life from the bookshop. Alba shares a list at the end of each day, detailing the book orders for that day which reminded me so much of Katie’s Receipt from the Bookshop posts.

The little shop survives the restrictions imposed by the pandemic, a fire and local scepticism of her chance of success — in a town with a total of only 180 residents, no-one expected a teeny bookshop to thrive.

There’s a tender paragraph about 60 pages in, where Alba begins renovations of the ground floor to make space for books, that I still can’t stop thinking about.

“The problem is that it’s freezing in there, the windows don’t shut properly and there are dozens of swallows’ nests along the beams. The swallows will be back soon, and we also need to start the refurbishment works.

In all this, I am still torn about something — what to do with the swallows’ nests wedged between the ceiling and the beams? What if a little swallow is already on its way from Africa, headed home to one of those nests? A home we’ll destroy? What if a swallow, having travelled over eleven thousand kilometres, averaging three hundred and twenty kilometres a day, having flow over Nigeria and Morocco, past the Sahara Desert and Gibraltar, were to swing east across the Pyrenees and finally arrive in Lucignana, only to find it’s nest gone? I have to talk to Marco, our mayor, who used to be in charge of farming policies when he was a councillor. We have to find a way to relocate the nests.” 🥹

‘Who doesn’t want to open up a bookshop in a gorgeous part of Italy?’ Stylist

Things I loved about the book:

• When I finished I sat down to journal on what precisely is standing in the way of me moving to Italy to open my own little bookshop (besides the obvious lack of EU passport and the fact that I speak a total of about ten Italian words, two of which are ‘pizza’ and ‘negroni’.) Not much else really.

• I added at least 20 new book to my TBR pile thanks to the book order summaries at the end of each day!

• There are sweet moments throughout the book that reminded me of the importance of community and of course, books.

• This line - “There are those that ask ‘what possessed me to open a bookshop in the middle of nowhere’. The thing is, Lucignana doesn’t know it’s in the middle of nowhere; as far as I’m concerned New York is in the middle of nowhere. This tiny village is to me the centre of the universe.”

• This manifesto:

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some other (italian) things:

🍦 a comprehensive guide to ortigia, sicily

🍦 why do we freak out over italian culture?

🍦 how to breakfast like an italian

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one gelato is never enough

1. https://medium.com/@TimBorn390856/do-you-know-lucignana-lu-in-the-middle-serchio-valley-1af9a5519369

2. https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/21036500.Elena_Pala