Here are 11 photos from a handful of the 30 book stalls that line Cuesta de Moyano, a pedestrian street along the southwestern end of Madrid’s sprawling and sensational El Retiro Park. The first one below, with a photo of a rock thrower on the cover of a book entitled ‘I Burn Paris’, caught my attention – for reasons that are probably obvious in the current moment, and sent me down a fascinating rabbit hole.

The author is Bruno Jasienski, who Wikipedia notes was “a Polish poet, novelist, playwright, Catastrophist, and leader of the Polish Futurist movement in the interwar period.” It goes on to mention that this book (whose Polish title is Palę Paryż), “a Futurist-Catastrophist novel depicting the collapse and decay of the city and social tensions within capitalist societies”, secured his reputation when it was published in 1928.

He was a communist activist in Poland, France and the Soviet Union where he eventually moved after either being expelled from –or refused entry into– several western European countries and where the first printing of the Russian edition of ‘I Burn Paris’, all 130,000 copies, sold out in a day. He worked in several Soviet literary posts before falling afoul of the authorities, and was executed in The Great Purge in 1938 aged 37. There is an annual literary festival, Brunonalia, held in his honor in Klimontów, Poland, his birthplace.

I now want to find an English translation.

According to the city’s official tourism website, this permanent book fair dates back to 1925 when a string of huts were set up on the road where sellers offered books for 15 cents, about the price of an anchovy. The stalls and the street have been upgraded since, but prices still begin at the anchovy end of the spectrum, at about a euro. It’s open daily but on this autumn Monday in late afternoon, pickings were slim. But still wholly entertaining, even as vendors were beginning to pack up their shelves. Time permitting, I’m going to return on Wednesday to pick up the Angel Planells monograph for my surrealism library.

Eight more images below.

Photos from 26 October 2026.