National Book Store

[Jollygoodfellow]

This is interesting read about the national book store and the Filipina owner who is 90 years old still runs the business.  :AddEmoticons04230:

 

 

 

MANILA, PHILIPPINES — The white-haired woman is short but stands straight, in a pink blouse and flat shoes, with mostly unwrinkled skin, a wide nose and a broad smile that nearly leaps from her face when she laughs. You congratulate her on being 90 years old, and she holds up a finger and says: “Ninety-one this year.” You ask her the secret of her longevity, and she says, “Work every day.”

 

You ask her about the early days of her first bookstore, opened during World War II, and she rolls her eyes and says the Japanese soldiers censored every publication, especially those from overseas, ripping out the pages they didn’t like. After a while, she feared selling American books at all because — she runs a finger across her throat — “the Japanese cut your head off.”

 

Her name is Socorro Ramos, and she started that bookstore in 1942 with her husband, Jose, as a small stall in an old section of downtown Manila. Who opens a bookstore during a war? They got by selling candies, soaps and slippers because books were just too dangerous. She let them pile up in the back until the fighting was over.

 

Rest of the story; http://www.freep.com/article/20140223/COL01/302230051/mitch-albom-Socorro-Ramos-national-book-store-philippines-manila-paperbacks

[Tukaram (Tim)]

Who opens a bookstore during an occupation?  She had to be crazy ha ha 

 

But they are the only good bookstore we have so I am glad she did.  :tiphat: