Everybody seemed to have heard of it, but nobody could point me to where it was exactly. It took me one full week to seek the Solidaridad Bookshop. As I was doing my initial search, I came across an article about a balikbayan relaying his recent visit to Manila and how his tour couldn't have been complete without dropping by the Solidaridad Book Shop. Being a fan of books myself, I felt a pang of guilt at how ignorant I was about this famed bookstore. However, my excitement and curiosity grew as well.

   It was a hot Saturday afternoon when I first went to Soli. Fronting the bookshop, Padre Faura Street was loud and busy with its usual share of jeepneys and weekend traffic. The facade of Soli provided a stark contrast; with its plain white and brick red paint, large glass windowpanes stripped clean of any of the usual promo posters and window displays. It radiated simplicity. I could tell at once that this was a unique, no nonsense bookstore. The shop's interior is a reflection of its external ambience. Inside, it seemed like a library. Everything was clean, quiet and organized. The books were neatly lined in austere wooden shelves and categorized according to sections such as Filipiniana, South Asia, Psychology, Spanish and Foreign. The shop is owned by the internationally-renowned novelist Francisco Sionil Jose and has been in operation since the 1960's. Some of Mr. Jose's books were displayed on the counter shelf, among them My Brother, My Executioner, The Pretenders, Tree and Po-on as well as the Japanese version of The Pretenders and Mass and a French translation of Tree and My Brother, My Executioner.

   I was busy admiring and leafing through Mr. Jose's books when out of the corner of my eye, I saw a young man on the other side of the shop. It was easy to detect that he was one of Soli's loyal patrons. With slow but sure movements, he eyed the shelves with the intensity of a scientist looking into a microscope. I broke his state of peace and immediately introduced myself. His name was Randolph, a 23-year-old denizen of Intramuros, taking up his Master's Degree in History and Religious Literature at the Ateneo de Manila University. Here's a portion of my brief interview with him:

   In your opinion, what sets this bookstore apart from other bookshops?

   "I think the main thrust of this bookstore is really in the areas of humanities, literature, art … Filipino literature. The selections in this bookstore, you cannot find in ordinary bookstores or commercial bookstores which sell school supplies."

   What specific hard-to-find books have you found here?

"My philosophy books like Michel Foucault. Some of my books in literary criticism, books of Jacques Derrida. Foucoult is a philosopher who writes on the history of ideas … mentalities. He's considered by some as the father of post-structuralism, which was movement in philosophy in the 1960's. But he's still very influential right now, although he already died in 1984. He's still a big name in the humanities and in the social sciences."

   Which Foucault books do you have?

   "His main texts. I have Discipline and Punish, Birth of a Clinic, his three Histories of Sexuality, the Discourse of Language, Madness in Civilization and some of his scattered articles which were collected into a three volume work, all the essential works of Michel Foucault. Also the book of Jacques Derrida, Speech and Phenomena, which is a collection of his essays, I found it only here."

   What else do you think is unique about this bookstore aside from its selection of hard-to-find books?

   "I think it's not just a bookstore (that exists) for the sake of selling books. It really offers book lovers books, which are really very hard to find. Pero meron ding mga books dito written by commercial authors. For example French authors like Albert Camus. I bought my Camus books here. He's a Nobel laureate, an Algerian French."

   How do you compare the selection of the big name bookstores to that of Soli?

   "With PowerBooks, when I look at their philosophy section, I find the usual stuff that you also find in National Bookstore."

   For people who do not know about Soli yet, what can you say is in store for them here?

   "For me kasi personally, I've always thought of bookstores as places where as humanists, you can enrich your soul. And there's a nice quotation here that a room without books is like a room without a soul. And I hope that these bookstores in the Philippines which are not really popular places for passing time or leisure, I would like to somehow see that time when students will go to bookstores like these, not just to commercial bookstores to buy their school supplies. I highly recommend this store."