The Bookshop on the Hill

'Romano, I want to open a bookshop where I live.'
'Great. How many people are we talking about?'
'180.'
'Right, so if 180,000 people live there, then...'
'No, not 180,000, Romano. 180.'
'Alba... Have you lost your mind?'
[Taken from a conversation between Alba Donati and Romano Montroni,
former CEO of Italy's largest bookselling chain]

Alba used to live a hectic life, working as a book publicist in Italy - a life that made her happy and led her to meet prominent international authors. And yet, she always felt like she was a woman on the run.

And so one day she decides to stop running and go back to Lucignana, the small village on the Tuscan hills where she was born, an hour away from Lucca. There, she opens a tiny bookshop, close to the woods: a lovely little cottage, only open six months a year.

With a total of only 180 residents, Alba's enterprise in Lucignana seems doomed from day one but it surprisingly sparks the enthusiasm of many across Italy. After surviving a fire and the restrictions imposed by the pandemic, the 'Bookshop on the Hill' soon becomes a refuge and beacon for an ever-growing community of people.

There is a whole world that gravitates around the bookshop: from the people of the village, who make up a sort of extended family, to Alba's centenarian mother; from her childhood friends to the many volunteers who help in the day-to-day running of the shop. And the many, many readers who come to visit from afar or place orders online, safe in the knowledge that Alba will be able to find the perfect book for them.