It may seem madness to open a business during a pandemic. While many lower the shutters and reckon with a future that is becoming increasingly uncertain, there are those who take courage in the hands and dive into the storm: Antonella Giustizieri (47 years) has opened a bookshop in Aradeo Italy, just over a month. It is called My Bookshop, located in via Salvo D'Acquisto 29 and is the crowning of a dream.

Almost 15 years ago, while working in a call centre in Padua, she decided to open a website: "It was a blog, but not a personal diary. In the evening I wrote book reviews". When social media arrived, My Bookshop became a Facebook page that now counts almost 120 thousand followers. Giving the bookshop the same name was the next step, closing a circle. And Giustizieri doesn’t care that she opened during the Covid-19 pandemic. Her is the only bookstore in Aradeo, has also aroused the interest of residents of neighbouring countries.

The clientele is varied: "There enters the mother with her newborn son as the 80-year-old gentleman, and everyone seems amazed to be in a real bookstore. Especially because until recently they were forced to drive half an hour for a book". The reason for that unbelief is clear: "The bookstore - says Giustizieri - is not just a shop, just as the book is not just an object. The library is a meeting place, where ideas and projects are born". 

For now, it is not possible to even imagine to organize a presentation, but Giustizieri looks to the future with optimism. She knows that it will happen, but now her task is to make her library a haven, an anchor that can at least temporarily calm the inner storm that everyone finds themselves living, distressed by the infections and fears that the Coronavirus brings with it. It is no coincidence, then, that among the best-selling books there are those for children, "bedtime stories that can reassure them". Adults, on the other hand, rely on new things.

Speaking of storms to calm down, the bookseller has a tip: "In my library there are also the great classics, maybe they will not sell, but for me, there must be. If I have to recommend one, I choose "Sostiene Pereria" by Antonio Tabucchi: for me, it is a light, an awareness. Sometimes we live without even realizing what happens to us. And I believe that at this moment we all need a jolt".

Tabucchi books on our catalogue to enjoy the holiday season: ●Tristano Dies: A life, by Antonio Tabucchi  ●Time Ages in a Hurry, by Antonio Tabucchi