Travelers who love bookstores will be happy to know that Italy is taking steps to keep them there for us, by offering special tax credits for bookstores, and bigger ones for independent stores.
Italy has a variety of unique bookshops, including the amazingly chaotic-seeming Libreria Acqua Alta, above, in Venice, where the books are stacked in gondolas as well as shelves.
Italy has been losing bookstores, and the trend has alarmed Italy’s association of independent bookshops, the Sindacato Italiano Librai. They point out that the business supports not only bookstore workers, but authors and publishing workers as well.
But it may be an uphill battle: A 2015 survey indicated that 60% of Italians read less than one book a year, and ten percent of families don’t own any. It’s not clear whether that means no reading, or means reading has moved to e-books.
Photo: Alessia Lupi/Instagram
