Alla cartoleria ho comprato una copertina trasparente per proteggere il romanzo dell’autrice che ti piace.

Alla cartoleria means to/at the stationery shop. It is a + la cartoleria, contracted into alla.

Italian often puts a place phrase at the beginning for context, a bit like:

• At the stationery shop, I bought...

So the sentence could also be:

• Ho comprato una copertina trasparente alla cartoleria...

Starting with Alla cartoleria gives the setting first.

Cartoleria is a stationery shop or paper-goods store. It is a place where you buy things like:

• notebooks
• pens
• folders
• school supplies
• paper

Depending on the store, you might also find book covers or school-related items there. It is not exactly the same as a bookstore.

Ho comprato is the passato prossimo, the tense most commonly used in spoken Italian to talk about completed past actions.

It is formed with:

• ho = I have
• comprato = bought

So literally it looks like I have bought, but in normal English it often translates simply as I bought.

A literary or more regional alternative would be comprai, but ho comprato is much more common in everyday Italian.

Copertina is a feminine noun, so it takes una.

The word copertina can mean different kinds of cover, depending on context:

• a book cover
• a notebook cover
• a protective plastic cover

In this sentence, because of trasparente and per proteggere, it clearly means a transparent protective cover.

In Italian, adjectives often come after the noun.

So:

• una copertina trasparente = a transparent cover

This is completely normal word order in Italian. English speakers often expect the adjective before the noun, but Italian frequently places it after.

Trasparente is an adjective ending in -e, and many Italian adjectives of this type have the same singular form for masculine and feminine.

So you get:

• un libro trasparente
• una copertina trasparente

Only the plural changes:

• trasparenti

Per proteggere means in order to protect or simply to protect.

Italian commonly uses:

• per + infinitive

to express purpose.

So:

• Ho comprato una copertina trasparente per proteggere il romanzo
  means
• I bought a transparent cover to protect the novel

This is very natural Italian.

Italian usually uses the definite article more often than English does.

So il romanzo means the novel. In context, it refers to a specific novel.

English might sometimes omit an article in places where Italian would not, but here il is completely expected.

Dell’autrice is a contraction of:

• di + l’autrice

which becomes:

• dell’autrice

It means:

• of the author
• or in natural English here, by the author

So:

• il romanzo dell’autrice = the novel by the author

The apostrophe appears because autrice begins with a vowel.

Autrice is the feminine form meaning female author.

So:

• autore = male author / author in a masculine form
• autrice = female author

Since the sentence says dell’autrice, it is specifically referring to a woman.

Literally, che ti piace means:

• that is pleasing to you

But in natural English, it means:

• that you like

This is because piacere works differently from English to like.

Italian structure:

• ti piace = it pleases you

So:

• l’autrice che ti piace = the author you like

Because piacere does not work like English like.

In Italian:

• the thing/person liked is the grammatical subject
• the person who likes it is an indirect object

So:

• Ti piace l’autrice = You like the author
• literally: The author is pleasing to you

Ti means to you.

By contrast:

• tu piaci means you are pleasing / people like you

So the two structures are very different.

It refers to l’autrice.

So the meaning is:

• the novel by the author that you like

Why? Because che ti piace comes right after dell’autrice, so it most naturally describes the author, not the novel.

If you wanted to make it clearly refer to the novel, you would usually restructure the sentence.

Because che here is a relative pronoun meaning that / who / which.

It directly connects l’autrice with the clause ti piace:

• l’autrice che ti piace = the author that you like

No extra preposition is needed because autrice is the subject of piace in the Italian structure.

Yes, that is the more literal shape, but it is not the most natural English.

A natural translation would be:

• At the stationery shop, I bought a transparent cover to protect the novel by the author you like.

Or more smoothly:

• I bought a transparent cover at the stationery shop to protect the novel by the author you like.

So the Italian word order is fine, but English usually rearranges it a bit.

Yes, it is natural and grammatically correct.

It combines several very common Italian patterns:

• a place phrase at the beginning: Alla cartoleria
• a common past tense: ho comprato
• noun + adjective: copertina trasparente
• purpose with per + infinitive: per proteggere
• possession/authorship with di: dell’autrice
• a relative clause with che: che ti piace

So it is a very useful sentence for seeing several everyday grammar points together.