Marginal notes to Giovanni Solimine’s book L’Italia che legge

Abstract

The paper reflects in the margin of Giovanni Solimine’s book L’Italia che legge, published by Laterza in 2010. The paper underlines Solimine’s intellectual versatility, one of the first and few Italian LIS scholars who devoted some attention, during his long career, to the fields of reading, publishing, cultural consumption and cultural industry. One of the great merits of the author is the ability to use statistical data without forgetting that reading question and its development is first a cultural question, overcoming data peremptory nature and revealing details that go beyond purely numerical relief. Solimine’s book is the result of a desire to see things from different angles, to avoid theorems or mystical impulses, not to resign himself to the simplest or most fashionable explanation. Reading data analyzed with hindsight give the impression of a substantial immobility and, thanks to Solimine’s depth of research and vision, on numerous passages the book seems to foresee trends and problems that will strongly emerge in Italy in the following years.