There’s something I haven’t told you about the bookshop. The bookshop that doesn’t yet exist.
I’m not sure why I’ve kept it back; maybe it’s just fun to keep a secret, a beautiful thing that belongs only to you. But it’s also a little like a present you’re planning to give someone. And you can’t stop thinking about how much they’re going to love it.
I hope you love this.
Here’s where the story begins. Last week I told you about the podcast I started listening to when I first realized I had always wanted to start a bookshop. The Got Books podcast began as a way for the host, Antonia, to explore her own dream of starting a bookshop. She interviews owners of bookshops from all over the world. And I mean ALL over the world. While listening to Got Books as I walk my dog through the streets of Amsterdam, I have vicariously traveled to wonderful bookshops in Egypt, Berlin, Singapore, Puerto Rico, Senegal, Australia, Latvia, and Canada, to name just a few.
At first, I would dip in when the mood took me, at random. Once I was hooked, I started listening to new episodes as soon as they came out. Finally, I went back to the beginning, to experience the whole back-catalog from the very first episode. And I couldn’t believe what I’d been missing.
Antonia’s first interview is with Shaun Bythell, who owns The Bookshop, the largest secondhand bookshop in Scotland. The Bookshop is located in Wigtown, a town of 800 with 17 bookshops. You’ll have to do your own math on how many books per capita that works out to. Designated officially as Scotland’s National Book Town, it hosts a literary festival each year. Already, this Wigtown sounds like a book-lover’s paradise, does it not?
But here’s where it gets even better. During the course of the interview, Bythell talks about another of those 17 bookshops: The Open Book. The Open Book is a bookshop you can own yourself. Yes, you read that right. You can book a week-long holiday at The Open Book, during which time you become proprietor of the bookshop. You are the bookseller. You can change the window display, rearrange the books, organize events, and just generally sit behind the counter and preside over the quaint, secondhand bookshop you’ve always dreamed of starting.
Of course I immediately headed over to see about booking myself a holiday at The Open Book. Unfortunately, I was not the only one with this idea. The place is booked out solid for the next five years, with an additional two-year waiting list. They do occasionally post last-minute vacancies, but so far I’ve been unable to snag one. In the meantime, I follow the adventures of each week’s current bookseller on The Open Book’s Instagram.
The whole thing got me to thinking, though. Isn’t that one of the things we love about a bookshop? The secret fantasy that comes over us every time we step in the door and the smell of books washes over us: that someday we might open a bookshop ourselves.
That’s definitely how it is for me.
But life and its inevitable practicalities mean that most of us will never actually manage to do it. For almost my entire existence, I was sure the dream of owning a bookshop would remain just that: a dream. It’s only a weird set of very lucky circumstances that resulted in my dream turning into an increasingly concrete plan.
Which made me think, why not give other people that same chance to live the dream of owning a bookshop? At least for a week. Why not? Why couldn’t I build my dream bookshop in Narni, Italy, and let a fellow-dreamer run it from time to time?
That’s how the idea of The Wardrobe Bookshop was born. The more I thought about it, the more it felt right. I could create a place where dreams come true, where that perfect little bookshop just around the bend on a cobblestone street in Italy belongs to you. Long, sun-drenched days that begin with a cappuccino in a piazza, then a walk back up the ancient stone staircase to the bookshop.
You turn the key in the lock, flip the closed sign to open, and settle back in a comfy chair behind the counter to wait for your first customers.
After a few hours of this, you turn the sign to closed for five minutes while you pop around the corner to the bakery for the best simple pizza rosso you’ve ever tasted. You bring it back to the bookshop, which will be quiet for the next couple of hours because everyone is lunching and resting during afternoon riposo. So you spend a few hours going through book donations and re-organizing the shelves. Things pick up mid-afternoon, but there’s still time to pour yourself a cup of tea and enjoy another chapter of that novel you’ve borrowed off the shelf.
You close up around six, which is not quite time for dinner in Italy. So you take a stroll through a charming maze of cobblestone streets, and then sit down at a table near the fountain for an aperitivo. The swifts are calling above you, and you spot a cat curled up in a doorway, enjoying the last rays of sun. You finish your spritz and wander around several crooked corners. Unexpectedly, you step through an arch to a sudden, magnificent view of green hills and a river gorge.
Walking along the railed boardwalk, you come to a bench with a perfect view of the glorious pink sunset just dipping behind the hill, limning the stone of Narni with golden light.
Through the deepening twilight, you make your way to a quaint restaurant where the homemade pasta comes matched with local wine. By the time you’re walking home, all the street lamps are aglow, and you’ve lost track of just which century you’re living in.
You close the bookshop door behind you with a contented sigh. The last thing you see as your eyes flutter shut is the top of the rolling bookcase ladder that goes all the way up to the leather-bound miniature books on the uppermost shelf. Tomorrow you’re going to climb up and take a look.
Are you with me? For the past few paragraphs, no lie, I forgot I was even writing this. My whole soul was immersed in living that ideal day in my future bookshop in Narni. I think it’s no accident that the little Umbrian town I fell in love with just happens to be the same one that inspired C.S. Lewis to create the magical land of Narnia. In The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, the children step through an ordinary wardrobe into a country of fauns and talking animals, perils and wonders beyond compare.
And that’s what I want my Wardrobe to be: a portal to another world—a world where our most impractical, beautiful dreams come true. Would you do it? Would you spend the night in a bookshop? All night dreaming with the books, and the next day sharing those books with the world.
These are dreams that will soon come true.
Coming in 2026 (or maybe 2025, if we’re very lucky): The Wardrobe Bookshop. On this very street, in the beautiful, magical town of Narni.
So keep on reading, and keep on dreaming, because from now on, the Wardrobe isn’t just my dream. If you want, it can be your dream too. It’s going to take a lot of hard work, a pinch of luck, and a fair amount of patience, since I’ve spent enough time in Italy to know that nothing there happens very fast. But that’s OK. I’m going to savor every moment of making this dream come true.
In the meantime, thanks for coming along with me on this journey to a place that had to exist in our minds before it could flicker into being in the world. Whether you become a Wardrobe bookseller, walk in the door some bright day to browse the shelves, or just enjoy reading along with us from afar, thank you for being here.
Together, we’re going to make something beautiful.
Adding "spend a night at the Wardrobe Bookshop" to my bucket list.
I am so keen! We’re hoping to visit Italy in 2026 (from Australia).