Books for bargain hunters
After meeting some friends somewhere at the Araneta Center in Cubao late this afternoon , I went to National Bookstore beside the Araneta Coliseum to look for Teodoro Agoncillo's Revolt of the Masses. (My Holy Week resolution was to start reading on Philippine history so as to fill the massive gap in my education. )

The bookstore did not have the Agoncillo book. It must have been sold out just recently because the last time I was there a copy was still on display. Not wanting to waste my effort altogether, I decided to go to my favorite section--the top floor where they put the books on sale.

The bookstore has a totally new collection of bargain brand-new books, and I was astounded by the quality of the books. Never before in my short life have I seen a more superior collection of books in a bookstore. I found three books I have been looking for for such a long time and bought them at bargain prices:

1) Robert Blake's Disraeli-- I know this book was a Bill Clinton favorite, and I was reading a book on Nixon last week, James Hume's Nixon's Ten Commandments of Leadership and Negotiation, and found out that it was Nixon's favorite as well.

2) Ian Kershaw's Hitler. I have always been fascinated by Hitler and his talent at selling his stupid ideas to the German people, and I've heard Kershaw's was the best biography of Hitler.

3) Professor Allan Bloom's translation of Rousseau's Emile. It was Allan Bloom's books that introduced me to poltical theory and I have always been in awe of Allan Bloom since then despite his terrible snobbism ( He, for one, thinks all pop music is trash and he only listens to classical music except Ravel's Bolero which he hates for being much too simplistic and popular among the youth.)

If any of you have time I highly advise that you take a look at the top floor of NBS Araneta Center. I remember seeing biographies of the ballet dancer Nureyev, Ho Chi Minh, Marie Antoinette, Madame de Pompadour, Alfred Kinsey, Gore Vidal, Saul Bellow, Gauguin, Peter the Great, Khrushchev, Mapplethorpe, Maria Callas, President Thabo Mbeki, Robert Burns, Lloyd George, Francis Bacon, many others I dont remember and, yes, even Robin Hood.

I saw collected works of JS Mill, various histories of the French revolution, a copy of Rousseau's Confessions, a history of British Labor political thought, Marshal Mcluhan's Medium and the Message, the memoirs of Louis Althusser,various copies of Thomas Friedman's Lexus and the Olive Tree, a book on DH Laurence's marriage. The bookstore was also selling Wordsworth editions of classics I' ve never before seen being sold in National bookstore, or in any other store for that matter, like Gargantua and Pantagruel, and Petronius's Satyricon.

The collection was too highbrow it blew my mind. I saw books you never expect National Bookstore would sell--and all at reduced prices. Light reading is also available. Books on musicians ranging from Beatles to Boyzone were also to be found. For those of more prurient interest, there is one whole shelf of classic erotica: Decameron, a bevy from anonymous authors, including one generally presumed to have been written by Oscar Wilde.

I think all other bookstores in Manila pale in comparison today. (The people behind PowerBooks like to think their collections are highbrow, but they delude themselves.) I highly recommend everyone to go the National at Araneta, take the escalators and go staright to the top floor, but please don't buy Peter the Great and the Principles of Public International Law which I have hidden right beside copies of Emile; I am yet looking for money to buy them.

Do I sound like some agent ? I was just too happy for finding such an abundance of good books being sold at sale prices, that's all.