Via dei Fienaroli 31/d

Monday – Friday 10:00-21:00

Saturday 11:00-23:00

Rome has a lot of bookshops that are worth writing about. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the independent bookshop scene is alive and thriving in the city, and that bookshops are not merely a place where one goes to buy a book, but rather a place where one can drink some coffee, listen to a lecture, watch a film, have some beers, see a band, have lunch and find likeminded people.

La Libreria del Cinema, as its name implies, is a bookshop devoted to books about films, which translates as heaven in my eyes. Sadly it doesn’t have a great selection of books in English, but it has other things that can be enjoyed by someone who doesn’t understand Italian. It is a little charming place decorated with old armchairs and a piano. The store is divided into three different spaces; the bookshop itself, the café and the DVD shop. Numbers 2 and 3 are what make this shop interesting for someone who can’t actually buy any books there. Their DVD section is very extensive and, from what I could see, fairly priced, and in the adjacent café you can enjoy a (really nice, as is normal in Rome) coffee, a cup of tea, or even a glass of wine and some food. Plus the waitress there is so nice that she made us some coffee even though the café part of the store was closed when we visited.

I would say this is a required stop for any film buff visiting the Italian capital, if only to find that places like this do exist. And if that isn’t enough to convince you, it’s right next to another bookshop that I will be writing about soon and located in  charming little alley in the Trastevere area.