# Books Burn Badly

Canonical: https://www.bookquiver.com/manuel-rivas/books-burn-badly/9780099520337

JSON version (same data): https://www.bookquiver.com/manuel-rivas/books-burn-badly/9780099520337.json

![Books Burn Badly](https://quivercdn.com/covers/vintage/manuel-rivas/books-burn-badly_978-00-9952-033-7.jpg?v=2026-04-22%2011%3A47%3A56)

- Book: [Books Burn Badly](https://www.bookquiver.com/manuel-rivas/books-burn-badly) ([Books Burn Badly.md](https://www.bookquiver.com/manuel-rivas/books-burn-badly.md))
- Authors: [Manuel Rivas](https://www.bookquiver.com/manuel-rivas)
- Publisher: Vintage
- ISBN: 978-00-9952-033-7
- Pages: 560
- Published: 2011-02-03
- Language: en_GB
- Binding: Softcover

## Description

On 19 August 1936 Hercules the boxer stands on the quayside at Coruña and watches Fascist soldiers piling up books and setting them alight. With this moment a young carefree group of friends are transformed into a broken generation. Out of this incident during the early months of Spain's tragic civil war, Manuel Rivas weaves a colourful tapestry of stories and unforgettable characters to create a panorama of twentieth-century Spanish history. For it is not only the lives of Hercules the boxer and his friends that are tainted by the unending conflict, but also those of a young washerwoman who sees souls in the clouded river water and the stammering son of a judge who uncovers his father's hidden library. As the singed pages fly away on the breeze, their stories live on in the minds of their readers.