Sui social is known as “The happy bookseller”. But in reality Monica Maggi she’s not exactly a bookseller. Meanwhile, why doesn’t she work in a bookshop. And then because she gives the books away. One could say that about her he saves books that no one wants anymore, and redistributes them to anyone who needs or simply wants them. In return he asks for a smile, a kind word or a handful of euros. «The most diverse people write to me through social media, and from every province of Italy» she says.
Save the volumes and find new readers for them: it’s Monica Maggi, “the happy bookseller”
«Children who don’t know what to do with all the volumes contained in their parents’ house, which must soon be sold; couples moving house and struggling with the cramped spaces of modern apartments. The elderly who want to free their dusty cellars from the texts of their grown-up children.”
Monica collects everything, even the records, and with a 2010 LPG white Panda he crosses Rome on his “rescue missions”. Or ask for them to be sent to you, with cheap and trustworthy couriers. Then with all these titles he makes markets. For several years you have been a regular guest at the local markets
Monte Sacro and Serpentara neighborhoods. When she arrives at nine o’clock there are already those who have left her the envelopes with her books, as gifts from her.
Monica Maggi’s book markets, where you deliver and receive
On other days it opens its stall in other squares of the city, in universities, or wherever they call it. She report appointments on social media and people flock. For some this is a liberating gesture: they consider them ordinary profane furnishings and want to get rid of them.
«Others hand them over to me with transport, pain and love, as foundlings were entrusted to each other at the doors of hospitals». Also following her are her regulars who turn to her to come up with new readings. She welcomes them with a ritual question: «What are you looking for? What do you like?”. And then from that enormous archive that is his memory he pulls out a title. «Here, take it and take it home. This is for you. If you allow me, I’ll suggest others.”
What readers ask the happy bookseller
One morning Nuccia, 88 years old, with enviable tenacity, approached her arm in arm with her son. «She takes out a squared piece of paper, worn due to many folds and full of words written by hand and in italics – Monica says –: «These are the books I have read, on the other page there are the ones I would like». The following Saturday I had prepared a cassette overflowing with titles for her».
Before the summer, a couple of future spouses proposed that she choose and send two hundred volumes that they would give to guests for their wedding.
The most requested are the Russian, English, American and Italian classics (Cassola, Bulgakov, Tolstoy, Carver, Woolf) and the recent titles that have been talked about. «But there is also a great demand for 20th century romance novels (from Liala to Barbara Cartland), for evergreen detective stories (Agatha Christie, Conan Doyle
and Edgar Allan Poe)” and lots of non-fiction.
From the great Russian classics to hard-to-find books: Monica Maggi’s Panda has it all
There is a title that has been recovered at least a couple of times, and which was almost put up for auction because it is a true milestone of feminism: «It is Us and our bodyFeltrinelli edition of
1971” tells. «I found some copies in the homes of elderly teachers with a past as activists. I think people contact me because they can have something to read for free or for a price a very minimal contribution» observes Monica. «But also because they know they can find the unfindable». Recently a convent gave her a collection of books of prayers, with precious illustrations.
Who is Monica Maggi, former journalist (and much more)
In her 65 years, Monica Maggi has lived many lives: «I have been journalist; teacher at school; press officer for a sex shop. I wrote sex-related content for the weekly magazine The Express going to choose the new products directly at the Frankfurt book fair. I hosted a radio program. I trained residents of a retirement home to use the PC. I taught writing techniques at the University of the Third Age». But this is the job she loves most.
How to contact the happy bookseller
They often write to her asking her if she knows anyone who does what she does elsewhere: «But since there isn’t one, I suggest they send their books to me: they will be pampered and will not
a sad end.” The costs for sending, he explains, are not high. “On vagofacile.it with 50 euros, you can also send 200 books (for info on all his activities: [email protected]).
Eight thousand used books recovered in seven years
There are eight thousand used books that she has managed to recover in seven years, since she started this adventurefirst in spare time, then with more commitment especially from August 2020. He says not
he does it for the money. «This strange profession would not allow me to cover all the costs that a normal life requires, but (integrated with the pension, ed.) I can do it. And I still enjoy it a lot.”
She collects the volumes in a messy warehouse that Municipality 3 of Monte Sacro donated to her: «I don’t catalog them, though, I don’t have the time». Helping her with her work are a couple of volunteers and the
Husbandwho make do with couriers and boxes.
What you understand about a reader from the book he has read
«What I collect is not mine, it is the seed of other people’s lives” specific. «From the state of conservation of the dust jacket, the spine, the corners and the pages, we understand a lot about the personality of the previous owner: some engraved the pages with a nail leaving an almost invisible mark, others hint at crooked and approximate signs, such as asterisks and dots exclamations”.
Those who underline with the ruler and the gray of the graphite have a different nature from those who mark the margins with a colored marker. «Bookmarks, notes,
dedications, holy cards, love letters, shopping lists, study notes. I don’t take them away: they transmit
the weather. And with it life.”
As Virginia Woolf wrote, «Second-hand books are wild books, homeless books. They have gathered in vast flocks of variegated feathers and have a charm that domesticated volumes lack
of the library.”
Reading, an unpunished vice
«Reading is a vice, but unlike almost all other compulsive habits, it is an unpunished vice that gives us the illusion of leading us to virtue» he writes in the essay The reader on the couch (Einaudi), Guido Vitiello who edited from 2016 to 2022 The bibliopathologist column on the weekly website Internationala survey of the habits, tics, phobias, rituals and extravagances of bibliophiles.
Vitiello quotes Joseph Conrad: «Books resemble human beings more than all other inanimate objects because they contain our thoughts, our ambitions, our illusions, our fidelity to the truth and our persistent inclination to error.”
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