Book shopping in Italy
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Bookàbar
In Firouz Galdo–designed, cool, gleaming white rooms, Bookàbar – the bookshop attached to Palazzo delle Esposizioni – is just made for browsing. There are books on art, architecture and photography, DVDs, CDs, vinyl, children’s books, and gifts for the design-lover in your life.
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Art Book Milano
The multilevel gallery Massimo de Carlo is entered via a bridge that gives a full view of the stockroom innards. This Via Ventura pioneer is a must-see, for the stellar line-up of artists - Diego Perrone, Simone Berti, Pei-Ming Yan - as well as the architecturally thoughtful space. In the same complex is the ever-challenging Zero and Art Book Milano. Via Massimiano is home to Francesca Minini and Klerkx, both showing intriguing new-generation work.
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Libreria Internazionale Marco Polo
Hunt for anything from preloved novels in various languages to new books on variegated subjects. If you're interested in the way guidebooks used to be, this is the place to rummage for antique volumes on various locations in Italy and beyond. If it's contemporary guidebooks you want, head to the sister store, Libreria San Marco (041 522 63 43; Salizada San Lio, Castello 5469; 09:30-20:00 Mon-Sat, 11:00-19:00 Sun).
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Imagaenaria
Charming and erudite, this little bookshop is also a local publishing house that prints a fetching series of mini-books dedicated to Ischian folklore, culture, history and nature in Italian. The shop also sells rare prints and lithographs of Ischia and Naples at a range of prices. The most expensive date back to the 1600s. Open until 21:00 in winter and 01:00 in summer for some serious late-night shopping.
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Mare di Carta
Sailors, pirates and armchair seafarers should navigate their way to this canalside storefront, where you’ll find every maritime map and DIY boating aid needed for lagoon exploration, boat upkeep and spotting local sea life. If you’re considering rowing lessons or a sailboat excursion – and who doesn’t after a few days on the lagoon? – stop here first to check out the schedule of boating classes and trips.
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Notebook
This sprawling shop at Auditorium Parco della Musica has a hefty collection of art, film, music, design and travel books (mostly in Italian). There are also CDs, DVDs and Auditorium merchandise for smitten culture vultures. For the lowdown on upcoming literary events, do a keyword search for 'bookshop' on the Auditorium Parco della Musica website (www.auditorium.com).
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Mondadori
The city’s broadest selections of guidebooks and Italian literature are major draws at this multistorey literary megastore, run by one of Italy’s most prominent book chains (majority shareholders are the Finninvest group, a Berlusconi family venture). Check for upcoming author events, and take your must-read-now novel to the hip Bacaro.
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L'Isola del Fumetto
In Italy, fumetti (comics) aren't just kids' stuff: grown men have been known to weep to discover these rare Italian comic books and hard-to-find action figures, and bargain-priced Italian translations of Flash Gordon and Gli Incredibili (The Incredibles) practically beg to be turned into laminated earrings and decoupage tables.
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Feltrinelli
The bookstores of Italy’s most famous bookseller (and publisher) dot the capital. This one has a wide range of books (in Italian) on art, photography, cinema and history, as well as an extensive selection of Italian literature and travel guides in various languages, including English. There’s also a small English books section and a café.
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Almost Corner Bookshop
This is how a bookshop should look: a crammed haven full of rip-roaring reads, with every inch of wall space containing English-language books and travel guides. There’s an excellent selection of contemporary novels and bestsellers as well as more obscure titles. If you can’t find what you want, the English-speaking staff will order it in.
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Alinari
This is the oldest photographic business in the world. The Florentine Alinari brothers founded their enterprise in 1852, and produced more than one million plate-glass negatives in their lifetimes. At their Rome shop you can buy beautiful prints of their work depicting the city in the 19th century, as well as some meaty coffeetable books on photography.
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Solaris
The plot thickens at Venice’s landmark bookstore for comics, mysteries, and science fiction. The tiny store is packed with DVDs, books, and periodicals with a back wall that’s one big curved bookcase, and there’s an entire section just for Corto Maltese, the detective graphic novel set in Venice by Italian comics master Hugo Pratt.
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Bibli Bookshop
Intelligentsia types flock here to stock their bookshelves, hobnob at the regular readings and launches, and discuss plots and characters over cake at the in-house café. There's a limited selection of books in English. Aperitivo is served from 19:30 to 23:00 and brunch at weekends from 12:30 to 15:00 for particularly peckish bookworms.
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Touring Club Italiano
Touring Club Italiano is the travel branch of Italy's motoring organisation, the Automobile Club Italiano. It produces Italy's finest maps and travel books, all of which are sold at this, its flagship store. You'll find one of Rome's best collections of guides to Rome in English, an excellent stock of art books and a travel agency.
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Hoepli International Bookstore
Italy’s largest bookshop has six floors and some 500,000 titles and rare antiquarian books, as well as an English- and German-language section. Don’t neglect to browse the Italian shelves, even if you don’t speak the language as local publishers are known for their beautiful cover design and innovative pictorial titles.
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Libreria Giunti al Punto
The ‘Straight to the Point’ children’s bookshop is an ideal place to distract your kids. Large, colourful and well stocked, it has thousands of titles in Italian and a selection of books in French, Spanish, German and English, as well as a good range of toys, from play dough to puzzles.
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Questoequeo
Serve up some Venetian architecture with dessert, on cake plates painted with Gothic rosettes worthy of a Grand Canal balcony. Ceramic artisan Martina Purisiol has developed a distinctive marbling effect and colour gradations that echo San Marco’s inlaid marble floors, and will do your cooking proud.
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Libreria Antiquaria Gonnelli
One of the temples to old books and manuscripts in Florence, the Gonnelli business has been going since 1875. Step inside and see the ancient volumes stacked on the shelves, precious manuscripts on show and knowing clients discussing rare texts in hushed tones. It is as though time has stood still.
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Libreria Studium
Consult bibliophile staff for worthy vacation reads, page-turning Venetian history, and top picks from shelves groaning under the weight of Italian cookbooks. Many titles are available in English and French, and there’s a respectably vast Lonely Planet section (not that we’re biased).
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A+M Bookshop
Contemporary art monographs, catalogues and audiovisual material join gorgeously realised a+m edizioni titles that cover an inspiringly diverse range of artists and theorists as well as thoughtful visual essays on everything from New York’s community gardens to the reconstruction of Milan’s PAC.
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Feltrinelli (Galleria Alberto Sordi)
The bookstores of Italy’s most famous bookseller (and publisher) dot the capital. This one has a wide range of books (in Italian) on art, photography, cinema and history, as well as an extensive selection of Italian literature and travel guides in various languages, including English.
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Feltrinelli International
The international branch of Italy’s ubiquitous bookseller has a splendid collection of books in English, plus Spanish, French, German and Portuguese. You’ll find everything from recent-release bestsellers to dictionaries, travel guides, DVDs and an excellent assortment of maps.
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Art Book Triennale
Run by Lambrate’s fabulous Art Book outfit, this shop is as enthralling as the exhibitions themselves. There’s a full range of beautifully produced catalogues as well as titles from Electa, Rizzoli, Thames & Hudson, Phaidon and MIT Press, and design piece children’s books from Corraini.
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Librairie Française de Rome
This French bookshop nestles next to France’s church in Rome, the Chiesa di San Luigi dei Francesi. Browse through the literature, fiction, nonfiction, general interest and children’s books before popping into the church to see the paintings by Caravaggio.
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