LA LIBRERIA SULLA COLLINA

A narrative memoir written like a personal journal by a poet bookseller, who tells readers the story of the daily life and the inspiring story of her bookshop: a remote, charming place in a medieval borgo in the Tuscan hillside.

Alba Donati used to live an urban, hectic life. Her job in publishing made her happy and lead her to meet prominent authors; at the same time, she was always in a hurry. And then, she decided to turn her life around and go back to Lucignana, the small village on the Tuscan hills where she was born, not far from Garfagnana. There, she opened a small bookshop close to the woods, with a lovely little cottage only open for six months a year, where both adults and children can choose and fall in love with books. With a total of only 180 residents in the whole village, Alba's enterprise seemed doomed to commercial failure; however, it surprisingly sparked the enthusiasm of many. After surviving a fire and the restrictions imposed by the pandemic, the Bookshop on the hill soon became an important place for a wide community of people who recognize themselves in its identity and initiatives. In the bookseller's day-to-day account, a whole Winter flows by in preparation for Spring, and the ups and downs of the bookstore emerge, among reading tips and books' orders (many of them of books written by women). And then, there is a whole world that gravitates around the bookshop, a sort of extended family. We read about Alba's family relationships, her childhood and her roots, her sentimental and literary education. Because this is of course also a book about other books, with intense pages dedicated to famous and beloved authors, often international ones, portrayed with a unique, personal voice. Alba Donati is a much praised and award winning poet and this is her first narrative work. She was born in Lucca and lives between Florence and Lucignana. A collection of her poems, Tu Paesaggio de'll infanzia, was published by La nave di Teseo in 2018.