Italy’s bookstores are figuring out how to reopen a business after a lockdown | Lifestyle - Quartz

After experiencing a severe coronavirus outbreak—with almost 170,000 people infected and more than 22,000 killed—things have started to improve in Italy over the past couple of weeks, observes Luiz Romero, Reporter at Quartz. 

A man at the Feltrinelli bookstore in Rome.

It recorded its lowest number of new cases in one month earlier this week.

The government has now started to ease its strict lockdown measures. It has allowed some businesses to reopen, including bookstores, which are now having to figure out how to reignite their operations and start welcoming customers again.

China is the only country that had as severe an outbreak as Italy, managed to control it, and is now trying to reopen. China’s main lesson might be that the behaviors that businesses need to protect against are so omnipresent—being together, breathing, touching things—that changes are radical...

Where are the readers?

One question now is what Italians will be buying once they’re inside—beyond the books about the pandemic, which are already being written here. If the current bestseller charts are any sign, they will be looking for interminable book series to entertain their children, like the Harry Potter series, and themselves, with the Neapolitan tetralogy by Elena Ferrante.

Some will be looking for an immersion in the world of infectious disease, with Albert Camus’ Plague and José Saramago’s Blindness, while others, also based on the current rankings, will use the detective stories of Michael Connelly, Carlo Lucarelli, and Georges Simenon to find a escape.
Read more...

Source: Quartz