Which Books to Read

It’s already November 29th, and I heard that the CET-4 and CET-6 exams are in 20 days…

Although I didn’t pray to Brother Chun, I still passed the Legal English exam. It’s really worth burning incense for.

Every month, I go to the library to borrow 10 books, only to find that I end up reading only three or four of them, and the rest are returned untouched… I have to nervously count the days to return the books, lest I get fined like I did in my freshman year for being months overdue…

The books on my desk are now quite pure: two Bibles, an Oxford Intermediate Dictionary, a Xinhua Dictionary, the Republic in Chinese and English, the Four Books, a selection of works by various philosophers, Three Hundred Tang Poems… and that’s it.

Thinking back to high school, I used to travel far every week to buy magazines, and this habit persisted for two months after entering university…

As for computer magazines, I have a large collection at home: “Microcomputer,” “Computer Fan,” “Internet Weekly,” “Computer Enthusiast”… and I also have a lot of PDFs on this topic on my computer.

I was really dedicated to reading magazines back then, even more so than studying for the college entrance exam.

I would read every line and every word, obsessing over every technical detail…

But after entering university, it seems I’ve become indifferent. I feel the quality of magazines has been declining, and the two-month habit was just flipping through them casually and then leaving them aside.

Recently, I’ve been running to the library’s periodical room to read magazines. After all, the leisure books there are the latest, but the academic ones are all outdated.

Looking at the list of recommended books for my major, I probably won’t finish them all during university. There are about 200 books in total, and most of them are obscure and difficult, so I plan to read the surrounding ones first,

like history and humanities, before moving on to philosophy and law.

Here’s the list of books… (It’s too long, so I’ll hide it below)

• The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, published by The Commercial Press
• Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and Their Decline by Montesquieu, published by The Commercial Press
• Democracy in America (Volumes 1 & 2) by Alexis de Tocqueville, published by The Commercial Press
• State and Civil Society: A Path of Social Theory Research edited by Deng Zhenglai et al., published by Central Compilation & Translation Press
• Being and Time by Martin Heidegger, published by SDX Joint Publishing Company
• Law and Economics by Robert Cooter and Thomas Ulen, published by SDX Joint Publishing Company
• An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (Volumes 1 & 2) by Adam Smith, published by The Commercial Press
• Economy and Society (Volumes 1 & 2) by Max Weber, published by The Commercial Press
• The Idea of History by R.G. Collingwood, published by The Commercial Press
• The Philosophy of History by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, published by Shanghai Century Publishing Group
• Historical Ontology: Five Essays on the Year Ji Mao by Li Zehou, published by SDX Joint Publishing Company
• The Knowledge-Value Revolution by Taichi Sakaiya, published by SDX Joint Publishing Company
• Democracy and Capitalism by Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, published by The Commercial Press
• The Old Regime and the Revolution by Alexis de Tocqueville, published by The Commercial Press
• Postmodern Culture: The Social and Cultural Consequences of Technological Development by Peter Koslowski, published by Central Compilation & Translation Press
• The Theory of Communicative Action: Rationality of Action and Social Rationality by Jürgen Habermas, published by Shanghai Century Publishing Group
• Norms, Persons, Society: Preliminary Thoughts on Legal Philosophy by Günther Jakobs, published by Law Press China
• Issues in Legal Interpretation edited by Liang Zhiping, published by Law Press China
• Speaking Law, Living Law, Legislating Law (Revised Edition) by Xu Zhangrun, published by Tsinghua University Press
• Legal Philosophy by Arthur Kaufmann, published by Law Press China
• Introduction to Contemporary Legal Philosophy and Legal Theory by Arthur Kaufmann and Winfried Hassemer, published by Law Press China
• Returning to the Concrete in Law edited by Sun Xiaoxia et al., published by Law Press China
• Inquiring into the Meaning of Law: Legal Philosophy from a Hermeneutic Perspective by Xie Hui, published by The Commercial Press
• An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation by Jeremy Bentham, published by The Commercial Press
• The Metaphysics of Morals: The Science of Right by Immanuel Kant, published by The Commercial Press
• The Legal Foundations of Capitalism by John R. Commons, published by The Commercial Press
• Foundations of Natural Right by Johann Gottlieb Fichte, published by The Commercial Press
• The World as Will and Representation by Arthur Schopenhauer, published by The Commercial Press
• Reconstruction in Philosophy by John Dewey, published by The Commercial Press
• General Theory of Law and State (Foreign Legal Library 4) by Hans Kelsen, published by Encyclopedia of China Publishing House
• The Concept of Law (Foreign Legal Library 5) by H.L.A. Hart, published by Encyclopedia of China Publishing House
• Law’s Empire (Foreign Legal Library 6) by Ronald Dworkin, published by Encyclopedia of China Publishing House
• Law, Legislation and Liberty (Volumes 1, 2, 3) by Friedrich Hayek, published by Encyclopedia of China Publishing House
• On Law in Economy and Society by Max Weber, published by Encyclopedia of China Publishing House
• The Discipline of Law by Lord Denning, published by Law Press China
• Introduction to Legal Thinking by Karl Engisch, published by Law Press China
• Essays on Jurisprudence (Volumes 1 & 2) edited by Zhang Wenxian et al., published by Law Press China
• Introduction to Jurisprudence by Liu Xing, published by Law Press China
• Jurisprudence: From Ancient Greece to Postmodernism by Wayne Morrison, published by Wuhan University Press
• The Problems of Jurisprudence by Richard A. Posner, published by China University of Political Science and Law Press
• Jurisprudence: The Philosophy and Method of the Law by Edgar Bodenheimer, published by China University of Political Science and Law Press
• Law and Religion by Harold J. Berman, translated by Liang Zhiping, published by China University of Political Science and Law Press
• Law in Dispute: The Past, Present, and Future of Chinese Law