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| This is not a usual place |
Author: Gayane Simonyan
Feltrinelli RED (Reading, Eating and Dreaming), opened a new book-cafe in Florence with a quite different format on April 15, 2014. During the inauguration Inge Feltrinelli, the president of Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Editore and Carlo Feltrinelli, the president and CEO of Feltrinelli group were welcoming the visitors with degustation of food and drinks.
RED includes narratives, multimedia aids, dictionaries (around 50 different languages), and also comics and games for the little customers-kids. There is a vast range of pocket books, tourist guides and video cassettes.
“There are more than 100 bookstores in Italy but we are opening several new bookstores in a new way, in a new format that is named RED - acronym of read, eat and dream”, said the press officer of the Feltrinelli bookstores, Paolo Soraci.
According to Mr. Soraci besides reading, you can have different dishes prepared by specialized, certificated cooks, chefs who are there to serve special dishes different from the ones you can find in simple cafes.
“You can come to RED for different purposes- to meet your friends, just study or work, go around look for books, listen to the presentations that we are going to have with artists and book authors,” he said.
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| A place for drinking |
Mr. Soraci told that every year they organize in all stores of Feltrinelli more than 5.000 presentations with authors of the books to present their books or to talk about it and answer questions; also musicians to present their latest record and if possible play some pieces of their work.
The ground floor of the bookstore is mainly for eating and reading, on the first floor there are books in different languages and on the second floor you can find CDs and DVDs, another part of non-fiction books and some necessary goods for travelling: bags, guides, maps, travel literature and other objects for travellers.
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| A place for reading |
“The idea stems from Rome.The first one we opened in Rome two years ago and then the next year the second one in Milan and this is the third and the biggest one in Florence. We decided to open such a unique store- cafe because in the tradition of Feltrinelli, bookstores are places where people meet and not only buy books. Then the advent of Internet,” said Mr. Soraci.
He added that it’s an era of digitalization and it’s quite difficult to sell books and CDs now than it was 15 years ago. But RED is unique by offering is altogether- reading, listening to music and some real life activity other than internet.
“We have wi-fi connection and devices that you can rate for the stoke of food, events, etc… Besides, we have website in which we sell books as well,” said Mr. Soraci.
The press officer mentioned that the cafe is open from 9am to 11 pm every day of the week. The prices of books are the same as in the other bookstores, because there’s a fixed price for books in Italy, and the maximum discount is 15% for a book.
“As for food, we have affordable prices with high quality food and drinks. We have books in Italian, English, French, German and a few Spanish books,” he summed up.
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| A place for meeting people |
