RIntroduce thanks to a book and two special bookstores, those magical places created by people who not only sell paper objects, but something much more unique and rare: dreams and hope. This is the story of Come Alexandre Donnat, fifty -four -year -old French in identity crisis, to survive an arid and repetitive job that had drained the energy and the desire to live, came out of the depression by reading The bookcase on the hill Of the poet Alba Donati (Einaudi) and then it rushed 885 kilometers from France to Italy to go to thank her, in a sort of cultural and bookcase pilgrimage.
This story begins in January 2024 when a exhausted Alexandre leaves the job and begins to attend Nos Madeleines de Proust as a volunteer, a bookshop with St-Just-St-Ramert tea. A single bookseller and 243 volunteers of the cooperative, cultural lighthouse of the community of this semi -rural town of 15,900 inhabitants by Loira, one hour from Lyon. The bookcase on the hill is a revelation book for him.
Alba Donati told in those pages the crazy decision, after a life in the communication of the books and a past as director of the Vieusseux cabinet in Florence, to open a tiny bookcase as a cottage in Lucignana, a country of origin of her family, 180 inhabitants in the woods of the Garfagnana. It is called library above the pen and over the years it has become a place of worship and pilgrimage for lovers of books, poetry, nature, simplicity and a different way of living and looking at the world. There a community of readers and readers was created, united by the passion of Alba who together with her husband Pierpaolo Orlando (among other things soul of the School of Languages ​​of Fenysia Culture) also created Little Lucy, a “small literary festival like this” (from 8 June to 13 September, among the guests of this year Roberto Andò, Paolo Di Paolo, Marcello Fois, Dario Franceschini, Romana Petri, Sandra Petrignani, Nadia Terranova, Nicoletta Verna).
It is apparently everything “little so”, but great things happen there, because that library contains multitudes. Open just before Covid, then burned for a short circuit and reborn by ashes thanks to online crowdfunding which was the first nucleus of the Lucignana community. And from the ashes Alexandre was also reborn. He started on July 20 by bicycle to reach the Garfagnana village with the idea of ​​combining these two bookstores so important for him. Alexandre writes: «The bookcase on the hill is not a simple book, it is not a simple place. Once I immersed myself I felt at home. Hot in winter under a blanket with a hot chocolate. Summer, daydreaming in the garden with a lemonade. It is also a project that seemed crazy but full of poetry and simplicity. Of sweetness, sharing and passion. A project like many others should have. But this book would be nothing without “our Proust Madeleine”. Another project around reading, passion, exchange, discovery “.
Eight days on the pedals, from his country to the Alps, then Turin, Piedmont, Liguria, then La Spezia and finally from Marni to Garfagnana: 885 kilometers of travel, documented on the Polarstep website with photos, emotions and impressions. He sleeps where it happens, hostels, b & b, inn. A hard and difficult path, for him who is not a professional cyclist. Pedal and with fatigue his mind becomes more lucid.
«I start the climb to Lucignana. My legs are destroyed by emotions. I have tears in my eyes, “he writes. When he arrives, a small reception committee and a sign awaits him: “Welcome Alexandre”. Alba welcomes him with a tray of Madeleine. “Water, coffee or spritz?” He asks. “Spritz,” he says. Toast together on the lawn in front of the library and the partnership is cemented. Alba Donati says: «He remained one night in our Forestry and was very sad because the day after his father he came to take him by car to bring him back to France. He came with his nephew, the son of Alexandre, a ten -year -old blond curly boy with long hair who, before leaving, on the bookstore door, asks: why can’t they come to live in Lucignana? ».
It is not the first to be enchanted by the place and the library above the pen. “They often told me that my book offers inner peace”explains Alba. “The book was translated into about twenty countries and came up here readers from Québec, Spain, Germany, Australia. And everyone wanted to specify that they had arrived here because they had read the book. What’s going on, I wonder every now and then. QUesta is now alone, I have nothing more. I can’t judge, probably because there are too many of my emotions in these pages. Alexandre’s journey looks like a small miracle, I still can’t believe it. We cannot understand all the beautiful things ». Alexandre says: «For me, what binds these places is sharing, opening to others. They are like two rooms of a large house, each with its universe, its colors, its smells, its authors. Thanks to the creators of these places for bringing this softness to a world that is obscuring ».
A story perhaps with a happy ending. Perhaps, because it is true that we cannot understand all the beautiful things, but not even the bad ones. Since he returned to St-Just-St-Rambert, Alexandre has remained in contact with Alba. «Send packs of biscuits full of butter. He wrote to me that he resumed working and is not happy, he is afraid of falling back in the black hole. Always think of Lucignana to look for stanzers. I told him he can’t be so bad, I advised him to change jobs ». Who knows that one of these days Alba does not see to arrive in Lucignana Alexandre with the child with blond curls. This time with suitcases, to stay. It would be a nice story for a next book. There is already the title: The house on the hilleven if Cesare Pavese has already written it.
