Book Purchases in Italy in 2023: Almost half of the titles written by women authors.

Among the bestsellers in Italy for 2023, a decisive presence of women authors is noted in the 2023 sales rankings. If we look at the overall ranking, 48 out of 100 titles were written by women, with a total of 34 female writers. All together they generated 4 million copies sold and 61.7 million euros in total purchasing. Compared to the previous year, we are looking at an increase of 7.2 percent in copies sold and an increase of 3.9 percent in euros. In the overall top 100 titles in 2022 we had 31 women writers with 44 titles in the rankings.

And which are these titles and their authors? At the #2 spot of  best-selling books in Italy in 2023, just after Spare (Mondadori), we have Francesca Giannone’s La portalettere (The Postmistress; Publisher: Nord), closely followed by the leading title in the category of “illness romance”,  Tillie Cole’s  Dammi mille baci (A Thousand Boy Kisses – Always Publishing) and Michela Murgia with Tre ciotole (Three Bowls – Mondadori). A little further down the list, we find Come d’aria (Like Air -Elliot), which earned Ada D’Adamo a posthumous Strega prize. Moving a few positions further down the list is Due Cuori in Affitto (Two Hearts for Rent – Newton Compton) by prolific romance author Felicia Kingsley, who also places seven other titles in the top 100. Then, a little further down, is Isabelle Allende’s Il vento conosce il mio nome (The Wind Knows My Name – Feltrinelli), followed by Erin Doom with Fabbricante di lacrime ( Maker of Tears – Magazzini Salani). The list of the top ten bestselling titles written by women in 2023 concludes with Atlas (Giunti Editore), the last volume in Lucinda Riley’s saga, co-written with her son Harry Whittaker, and Colleen Hoover’s It Starts with Us (Sperling & Kupfer).

For further reading: giornaledellalibreria.it/news

Phot0: Francesca Giannone, author of La portalettere (Nazareno Ruggieri)