‘I’m often faster’: Milan’s bicycling bookseller takes on the online giants | The Guardian

Angela Giuffrida 9 Dec 2020
Luca Santini took his fight against Amazon and others to the streets after having to close his bookshop

Luca Ambrogio Santini is considered to be something of a knight-errant as he cycles around parts of Milan on his red cargo bike delivering books to people’s homes, so much so he is affectionately called the “Don Quixote of booksellers”.
“Quixote went to fight against the windmills,” Santini said of the protagonist in the classic novel by Miguel de Cervantes. “My windmills are the online retailers from those monster multinationals … which for us independent booksellers are unnameable.”
The former bookstore owner sighs before uttering a name: “Obviously, Amazon––I practically do what they do, and often I’m faster than them.”