From Italy comes a countercyclical cultural action in the shape of Slowbookfarm, an online bookseller which is  interested not in bestsellers at the lowest possible price but in literary and intellectual quality, La Repubblica reports.

The initiative originated with Alberto Casadei, Andrea Cortellessa and Guido Mazzoni, who have established a grading system for literary work in co-operation with the classification pordenonelegge-dedalus, a spin-off from the annual literary festival at Pordenone near Venice.
Works included on slowbookfarm’s list are chosen by a jury of writers, critics, philosophers, artists and editors and are all available for sale on the site, whose aim is also to promote the lists of small and medium publishers. The review Stephen Dedalus will publish interviews with some of the authors chosen and justifications by jury members of their choices.

 
‘It is an offence against learning that the big book chains all have tables near the entrance with the ten bestselling books piled up on them,’ says Andrea Cortellessa. ‘It’s an invitation to conformism, to homogenisation.’

Find Slowbookfarm here: