Rizals reading list.

Byline: Ambeth R. Ocampo

NEXT TO THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF THE Philippines, the library with a significant number of manuscripts by or to Jose Rizal is the Lopez Memorial Museum. Aside from the magnificent Filipiniana collection that grew out of a core of rare books assembled by Eugenio Lopez Sr. from dealers in Europe and the United States, the Lopez Museum has art galleries, a modest conservation laboratory and newspaper files where one can reconstruct Philippine history before martial law in 1972.

Most people assume that I spend a lot of research time in the room dedicated to Rizal in the Lopez Museum. Some people think I request for obscure books kept in a walk-in vault. But my past few visits to the Lopez Museum have been explorations into pre-war magazines, digging up …