Jose Rizal reputedly owned over 2,000 books. He even did his own cardcatalogue, leaving behind about 351 slips of paper with bibliographicinformation in his own handwriting. Rizal read a lot of French literature andparticularly liked Dumas' ''Three Musketeers'' and ''Count of Montecristo,''whose shadows we see in ''El Filibusterismo.'' He also read Moliere, Voltaire,Montequieu and Zola. He was not confined to prose though, being a poet bynature he read Musset's poems and his interest in history drove him to readNapoleon's memoirs, written when he was in exile in St. Helene. Surely, thisbook came in handy when he himself was exiled to far-off Dapitan from1892-1896. Rizal read Beaumarchais' ''Barber of Seville'' and ''Marriage ofFigaro'' which we know more as operas today than dangerous literary works inits time. Did Rizal read these books before he saw the operas or vice-versa?These days we watch the movie version first before sitting down to read thebook.Most of Rizal's books were in Spanish translation though in later life he readin the original languages: English, French and German. Thus, he translated fiveof Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales from the original German into Tagalogand illustrated these for his nephews and nieces: ''Ang Puno ng Pino (The PineTree)''; ''Si Gahinlalaki (Thumbelina)''; ''Ang Pangit na Sisiu ng Pato (UglyDuckling)''; ''Ang Batang Babai Mai Dalang Sakafuego (Little Match Girl)'' andI don't quite know how to translate, ''Ang Sugu.'' For his brother Paciano hetranslated ''William Tell,'' using this as an example on the reforms he wantedon Tagalog orthography.The list of books Rizal read is quite varied. Aside from literature Rizal readmany pragmatic books like: guidebooks to the different places he visited as atourist; ''Las Maravillas de Electricidad''; a six-volume work ''Studies ofBirds''; Nasau Lee's ''Tea Cultivation, Cotton and other AgriculturalExperiments in India''; Baltet's ''The Art of Grafting and Budding''; Buenet's''Drawings and Ornaments of Architecture'' and Money's ''Java or How to Managea Colony.''Rizal, however, is often dismissed by radicals as a useless man of ideas.Andres Bonifacio, another voracious reader, if we are to believe PioValenzuela, is supposed to have translated ideas into action. When Bonifacioheard that Rizal was against the planned outbreak of the revolution, he isquoted to have said that not all things can be learned in libraries, or wordsto that effect. Fortunately, we are now veering away from the stereotype imageof Bonifacio as an illiterate bodeguero from Tondo. Well, that bodegacontained: ''Lives of the Presidents of the United States'' (a book Rizal alsoread), a two-volume ''History of the French Revolution'' (that inspired ourown) ''La Solidaridad,'' Rizal's ''Noli Me Tangere,'' ''El Filibusterismo,''and the Rizal edition of Morga's ''Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas'' (when merepossession of these was considered a crime), ''Les Misrables'' by Victor Hugo,and the ''Wandering Jew'' by Eugene Sue (Rizal also read this thick book).Valenzuela says, ''Bonifacio went without sleep at night in order to read...andused to talk about the French Revolution."Rizal and Bonifacio, two sides of the same coin. Both inspired and developedinto heroes by reading.