The man and the woman of time always end up being right: the temperatures drop, it rains to the biés, the nature imposes the color of the dry leaves and the street terraces retreat. What we feared so much is already an irremediable fact. There are still nine months left before the city smiles again.

With the arrival of the rains, the old book fair has closed, which has very little to do with the jubilant June fair, when the heat makes its first ravages and book signings are covered with popularity.

The autumn fair is something else. More collected and decadent, this fair is based in Recoletos and owes its existence to the mother who bore her, the famous Cuesta de Moyano, named in honor of the politician Claudio Moyano, who promoted the Law of Public Instruction. In its day, the street received the traditional nickname of slope of the straw . Because of its proximity to Atocha, it was frequented by prostitutes who went to the station in search of clientele. It is said that the sexual practice known as the French had been left to us by the Napoleonic soldiers many years ago.

Located behind the Botanical Garden, the houses of the Cuesta de Moyano retain that worn and vintage air of all the old bookstores. However, they have nothing to do with the buquinistas of the Seine, whose boxes border the banks of the river as if they were wooden caterpillars. Buquinistas have had better luck than Moyano's booksellers. The French are subsidized. Here, however, the City Council not only denies them the subsidy but charges them an abusive fee. Madrid has little respect for cultural symbols . A few years ago, we were about to lose Gijón coffee. The fright could be repeated with Moyano.

It is a piece of life with a traditional novel inside. Pío Baroja walked through it until the day before he died. Now it is the bound version of Baroja that walks from hand to hand. But there were more famous fans. Millán Astray, for example. Today, among the fixed-pinion customers looking for treasures in the boxes are Arturo Pérez-Reverte and Juan Carlos Monedero. There are also peculiar characters among the booksellers. One of the most famous is Alfonso Riudavets, symbol of the place . He climbed the hill one day and became famous by opening every day of the year . Now, at almost 90 years old, the slope of life goes down as the yellow jersey of the Tour would lower the Tourmalet: without hands.

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  • Arturo Pérez-Reverte
  • Juan Carlos Monedero
  • Madrid
  • LOC
  • Columnists

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