Of course I went wandering in the bookshops while we were in Italy. Why wouldn’t it. And here is the first part of the results of my market research. This is one is in Pistoia and is part of a chain. I went into a couple of them and they were all in charming buildings. Now whether that’s because they like that aesthetic or because Tuscany is full of amazing buildings, I don’t know. Anyway, I appreciated the pretty locations.
Can I start with how much I love the fact that romance is called pink literature? Crime is called yellow literature so it just made me smile. And this bookshop had loads of them – in Italian and English.
There are also plenty of examples of English covers being used in translated editions in the romance and in the woman’s fiction sections – Lucy Score, Colleen Hoover, Taylor Jenkins Reid and more.
I’m not quite sure why the translated Mia Sosa is in the English language section, but there were plenty of options for the English-reader abroad – with a strong long in Italian-set books – Elena Ferrante, Hotel Portofino, Murder Under a Tuscan Sky, Italian-set romance novels, non fiction books about Italy.
And finally is it even a bookshop these days without a TikTok/BookTok mention somewhere! Of course it’s not…
Happy Saturday.
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 