Cheery Angst

This wasn’t her grandparents’ angst, but Emma Koenig, author of the book F*ck! I’m in My Twenties has accomplished what novelists and poets have done for generations: use existential angst to make a living and improve their love lives.

Nostalgic in Ermita Part 2: Solidaridad—a literary Mecca

Read the intro to Nostalgic in Ermita

My first stop was the old book store on the corner of Jorge Bocobo and Padre Faura. Solidaridad (Soli) was where I went to feed my intellectual appetite. I was glad to grace its premises once again. It was here where I stocked my bookshelf with books on literary criticism and poetry, my favorite topics at the time (so much so that I audited courses on them after graduating from college). Only one or two bookstores in Manila carried such titles. All the rest had become Borders-type operations.