Almost Corner Bookshop (Via del Moro 45, Rome, in the Trastevere quarter, the small street off the Piazza di Santa Maria in Trastevere, the bookshop that opened in 1997 in the specific Trastevere streetscape of medieval lanes and now constitutes the primary English-language literary bookshop in Rome) is the independent bookshop that the Rome English-speaking community (the expatriates, the international students, the literary tourists, and the resident English speakers who constitute the specific Trastevere anglophone community) uses as its reference: the selection (approximately 15,000 titles in English across fiction, non-fiction, history, travel, and Italian literature in translation) and the staff knowledge (the Almost Corner booksellers who can tell you which Italian novel in translation best captures the specific thing you are looking for, the Rome novel, the Naples novel, the Sicily novel, from direct reading rather than database search) constitute the specific independent bookshop value proposition that the Amazon algorithm can't replicate.
The Almost Corner Bookshop history: opened 1997 by Dermot O'Connell (the Irish bookseller who established the shop in the specific Trastevere location because the neighborhood's international residential and cultural character provided the natural customer base for a quality English-language bookshop) at a moment when the digital transformation of the book trade was beginning to reshape the independent bookshop economics, the Almost Corner has survived by consistent quality curation and by the specific loyalty of the Rome anglophone community that has made the bookshop a cultural institution rather than a retail outlet.
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Almost Corner Bookshop: Selection and Community
The Book Selection
The Almost Corner Bookshop selection (the approximately 15,000 English-language titles across all categories, with the specific emphasis on the Italian literature in translation that makes the Almost Corner the finest single source for English-language Italian fiction and non-fiction in Rome): the Italy section (the translations of Calvino, Morante, Moravia, Ferrante, Camilleri, Scurati, and the specific contemporary Italian fiction that the Anglo-American publishing market has discovered) is the most complete in Rome. The Rome section (the books specifically about Rome, from the historical (Anthony Caro's "The Severans," Mary Beard's "SPQR") to the literary (Emile Zola's "Rome," Henry James's Italian Hours, Eleanor Clark's "Rome and a Villa") to the contemporary (Jhumpa Lahiri's "Whereabouts")) is the most curated single-city bibliography available in Rome. And the general fiction and non-fiction selection reflects the specific literary taste of the staff rather than the bestseller algorithm.
Staff Recommendations and Community
The Almost Corner staff recommendation (the handwritten staff recommendation cards that are the specific independent bookshop signal, the staff book of the week, the staff reading list, the specific "if you liked X, try Y" connection that the bookseller makes from direct reading knowledge): the Almost Corner staff recommendations are the most reliable single source for "what to read while in Rome" guidance, because the recommendations come from people who read the books in the specific Roman context and can describe precisely what the book does for the reader who is standing in Trastevere wondering what to read next.
Q&A: Almost Corner Bookshop
What is the best book about Rome to buy at Almost Corner?
The Almost Corner staff have their specific recommendations (ask directly, the question "what's the best book about Rome you've read recently?" gets a genuine answer from the booksellers, not a pre-packaged tourist response). The perennial Almost Corner Rome recommendation categories: for ancient Rome history (Mary Beard's "SPQR", the most readable single-volume Roman history for the general reader). For modern Rome (Tobias Jones's "The Dark Heart of Italy", for Italy rather than specifically Rome, but essential for understanding the culture). For Rome literary fiction (Elsa Morante's "History", the Rome novel of the WW2 period, the most ambitious Italian novel of the 20th century, available in translation).
Internal Links
- Librerie Roma: Bohemien e Almost Corner a Confronto
- Trastevere in Inverno: La Libreria Anglofona
- Roma Anglofona: La Comunità Internazionale
- Fotografare Trastevere: Librerie e Vicoli
- Trastevere: Il Quartiere dei Libri e del Cibo
- Trastevere Mattino: La Libreria Prima del Bar
- Roma Letteraria: I Luoghi dei Libri
