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Regular readers may remember that a few weeks ago certain members of the eCool team confessed to being compulsive readers.  Imagine, then, the delight of those readers when they discovered a book vending machine in a small and out-of-the way train station about an hour to the south of Rome – just across the street from one of the best trattorie in Fondi.

We’ve never seen anything like it — and rarely have we ever seen anything that made us so happy.  That fear of leaving home without enough books — or without the right books — was immediately assuaged.  Here, in this remote location, a train station that’s nearly always empty and close to abandoned, was a book machine! Just put your money in and choose your volume!  All books at 10% off the bookstore price!

The selection of 16-20 books in the machine (we got so excited we didn’t count) included Dante, Twilight, Manfredi’s The Ides of March, one of Camilleri’s best selling mysteries, a Hannah Montana book for the tweens, and oh-so-many more fabulous reads.   

We weren’t the only ones who were intrigued and enchanted!  We observed a steady stream of onlookers — from the detatched to the clearly bookwormy — a rather lot of whom dropped in coins, inserted bills, and received a book in return.