The passion for books from A to Z

Grazia Gotti has spent her life among books. She was one of the founders of the historic Giannino Stoppani bookshop in Bologna and in 2003, again in the Emilian capital, she created the Drosselmeier Academy, a school to become booksellers and booksellers. Many young people who today manage bookstores around Italy have thus been trained in one of the professions that most contribute to the cultural growth of the country thanks to Grazia Gotti.

And how much Grazia Gotti can tell us about books and the universe that revolves around them emerges clearly when reading "Alla letter L" (Bompiani, 2022, pp. 288, also e-book) in which the author tells a lot about herself and own work. And it does so with an alphabet that is useful for deciphering the world of books with open and curious eyes. For each letter Grazia Gotti provides us with a suggestion, a memory, the memory of an encounter with a person or with a book. For each letter we find titles, authors, reading suggestions and some indications on what to avoid because Grazia Gotti has the gift of speaking clearly and not giving in to molasses and the general "volemose bene" that now accompanies the publishing world. A world where every criticism, even the most polite and well exposed, is now banned or considered treason.

Instead, in Grazia Gotti's book - from the A of America to the Z of zero - we are not afraid of words… and how could it be otherwise given that we are talking about books . Thus, letter after letter of the alphabet, the stories read intertwine with those of people, authors, booksellers, publishers, designers met by the author on a journey that is still in progress, but which has lasted for decades in search of answers to a great question: " How do you make the publishing market, and therefore the culture of a country, grow ?" Starting with children and books designed for them, Grazia Gotti seems to suggest us.

But is this really the case? We asked him:

“My speech does not apply to all books produced for boys and girls. I was referring to the classics for the youngest… to Rodari, to the stories of the baby elephant Babar written by Jean De Brunhoff. My reflection starts from my experience with books and from what I read to my son when he was little. I remember listening to the story of Ulysses or his father reading Pinocchio to him. Once I read him a book that was popular at the time and he said it bored him. He wanted another tale like that of Pinocchio. Fortunately, I had recently found a fairy tale by Luigi Capuana, Tiritituf! On a stall. It worked well because it was a crooked, bizarre, strange story like that of Collodi's masterpiece ”.

It is said - and the data confirm it - that little is read in Italy. Can a passion for reading be taught?

“More than teaching, it can be transmitted, it is a passion that can infect those around us. Having been a primary school teacher, I was able to see how easy the infection is if activated immediately, when the children are small. However, the teacher must also be a lover of books. How can you transmit the passion for reading if you are not a reader? It's not enough to give a volume to read as an assignment ... A teacher must be able to enchant when she tells what is written in books. He must make printed words points of reference for what we live and do in everyday life ”.

But will it not be that the new generations read little because so many books designed for them do not conquer in the end?

“Much of the current production is studied at the table and it is not the same thing as writing a book because you feel it, because you are inspired. Studying production for children and young people, until the nineties we find amazing books, then with Harry Potter everything changes and it becomes more difficult to write books as it used to be ... and even sell them. For this reason, at a certain point I stopped working as a bookseller ”.

Not a Harry Potter fan?

“If for this not even Geronimo Stilton. They are books that do not help us become aware "

Meaning what?

“To understand this in my book at the letter B, I am talking about the word best seller. About twenty years ago I had the idea of making a book on Giovanni Falcone. His death was still an open wound for me and it seemed to me that Falcone's memory was somewhat clouded and that there was not enough talk of the mafia. In the wake of this need, an extraordinarily successful book was born, This is why my name is Giovanni by Luigi Garlando. Here, what I mean when I say that a book must help us become aware of what surrounds us. It must help us become better as human beings and as citizens. Once at school a little girl told me: “Teacher, I like to learn when I read… with Geronimo Stilton I don't learn anything!”. In the end, certain authors sell and people buy them, but in this way the cultural and civil level is lowered ”.

Is there a letter "told" in your book to which you are particularly linked?

"O, of the East, because the encounter with oriental culture came too late and it would have done me good to meet this culture first. And I am very interested in C, of China because the Chinese have bought many large publishers around the world and I can't understand if they did it just to make money or because they have a cultural plan behind them ".