Trastevere being the Rome neighborhood every English speaking expat seems to flock to it is not a coincidence that Rome’s two most interesting book stores can be found here. The Almost Corner Bookstore in the Via del Moro only sells new books, while the Open Door Book Store on the Via della Lungaretta specializes in used books.
The Open Door Book Store is by far our favorite one in Rome. The name suits the place perfectly, since everybody working there is always genuinely friendly, the prices are low and the selection is excellent. (Via della Lungaretta, 23)
The Almost Corner Book Store (Via del Moro, 29 – Tel: +39 065817181)is a good book store as well and is good at ordering books for you if they don’t happen to have them in stock.
MEL Books on the Via Nazionale is part of a chain and sells mostly Italian language books, but has some shelves with English language books. In the downstairs part (half price and used books), there is usually a tiny selection of used English language books, consisting of at the most 50 titles, mostly bestsellers, but there always some books for real readers as well.
If you are in a rush and you need to buy something to read on the train, the book store in Termini has a selection on its top floor. Whoever selects the books is rather haphazard about it and don’t expect to see anything that has come out less than 6 months ago, but it is big enough to find something to your liking anyway.
Feltrinelli International (Via Vittorio Emanuele Orlando, 84 – 00185 Rome, Italy – Tel: +39 064827878) is part of Italy’s biggest chain. It can be found near the Repubblica metro station, no more than a short walk from Roma Termini. Apart from English books, they also sell Spanish, German and French books. The downstairs floor is mostly taken up by language textbooks and dictionaries. Like in most book stores that are part of a chain, unfortunately, more and more space is taken up by paraphernalia such as agendas, post cards, cd’s and dvd’s etc.
