Read Your Way Through Rome

If I have no time for day trips, what books can take me out of the city instead?

I love the various towns of the Castelli Romani, just a few minutes from the city. I advise you to follow in the footsteps of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who immersed himself in the peace of Castel Gandolfo, or Hans Christian Andersen, who plunged into the flowers of Genzano. In Nemi, you’ll find the famous fragoline (wild strawberries) and the marmalade made from them, which is truly delicious! You will find them in every restaurant, farm and cafe in Nemi. In the Castelli, do what Stanley Tucci does on his gastronomic tours for television: taste everything.

What books can take me behind closed doors and show me hidden facets of the city?

“Global Rome: Changing Faces of the Eternal City,” edited by Isabella Clough Marinaro and Bjorn Thomassen, is a collection of essays that break through all the clichés and show us a Rome that is globalized, plural, polyglot and peripheral. That is the Rome that you find in the beautiful “Strangers I Know,” by Claudia Durastanti and in “Little Mother,” by Cristina Ali Farah.

Which writer is everyone in town talking about?

Zerocalcare! A young cartoonist — his real name is Michele Rech — he has transformed contemporary Rome, dialect included, into a universal experience. From his base in the suburb of Rebibbia he talks to the world and about the world, from Iraqi Kurdistan to underemployed youth and the pandemic. He recently landed on Netflix with an animated series, “Tear Along the Dotted Line,” which follows the life of a slightly awkward cartoonist — a stand-in for Rech himself — with an armadillo for a conscience.

What literary pilgrimage destination would you recommend?

If you pass through Rome, a visit to the poets John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley, buried in the city’s Non-Catholic Cemetery, is a categorical imperative. The cemetery is an oasis of peace amid the traffic that imprisons the Ostiense area. While there, you can also visit the tomb of Antonio Gramsci, the Italian philosopher, writer and founder of the Italian Communist Party, who was imprisoned until near death for opposing fascism. Somewhere in there is also the spirit of Sarah Parker Remond, an African-American abolitionist and suffragist campaigner to whom, in recent years, a plaque was dedicated near the entrance. If you visit, bring some good thoughts and a rose.

Any bookstores I should visit?

Tuba is a special place — a feminist bookstore in…