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.
The owner is a renowned prolific author F Sionil Jose who in his 80s is still quite a force in the literary world. Having read most of his work which are now translated into several languages (the French edition tempting me at the counter -- though I don't speak French), I picked up his latest novel after chatting with the clerk manning the store. It didn't occur to me to ask what would happen once the grand old man of Philippine lit exits the scene. Who would continue his legacy?
I decided to also take a book on the Philippine-American war of 1898 to 1902, a little understood and misinterpreted event, but which holds much currency these days with the Afghan war, the Philippines being the first attempt by the US in "nation-building", an effort that took 50 years to complete. There were also books on Buddhism and mystic Christianity that tempted me, but I settled for a Pulitzer prize winning poet and an investigative journalist piece by a local outfit on current events in the Philippines.
The total price of my purchases was a mere two thousand and two hundred fifty pesos or around $45 about half of what I would probably have had to pay back in Australia.
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