It is often said that the Chinese are a nation that does not like to read. But in reality, there is no shortage of reading among the Chinese, especially not in the amount of reading. The ancient people were poor and called themselves "readers", and the scriptures were turned over and over again, and modern people "looked at ten lines", and the online texts were one after another.
Their problem is only what they read and what they are reading for. Ancient reading, mostly only for officials, belongs to "utilitarian" reading; Today's people read either only books related to their work skills, which is both "professional" reading and "utilitarian" reading; Either it's to watch some innocuous "entertainment" reading.
However, neither "professional" reading, nor "utilitarian" and "entertaining" reading is the original purpose of reading, and all three types of reading have a common antonym: general reading. The original intention and original meaning of reading has never been "success", nor is it "entertainment", but "making people more human", which is the core of general reading. Liberal reading is a core of Western education, and the United States has also set off a nationwide liberal education reform. In recent years, the concept of general reading has been introduced to China and has been favored and supported by many people. However, in general, most Chinese people still know little about "general reading", let alone have the ability to practice "general reading". Therefore, it is still important for most people to recognise and understand general reading. To sum up, general reading has the following four important values for modern people:
Break down professional barriers and stand in modern society with "common sense".Our education begins with the division of arts and sciences in high school, and the university has entered a more specialized subject system, and there is no time to read a wider range of books after work, and this "stereotyped" way of reading has led to a "high lack of common sense" in many fields.
Liang Qichao said that "books should be read miscellaneously", and he once warned his son Liang Sicheng in a letter to his family: "Sicheng's learning is too specialized, I hope you can take advantage of a year or two after graduation to take a little time to learn more common sense." ”
Common sense is essential to a person, a society, and it may seem ordinary, but it is extremely scarce. Societies lacking common sense are often full of ignorance and low-level arguments, to a lesser extent, the lack of common sense has led to the chickens and ducks of the Internet, and at the same time, the phenomenon of "disagreeing with each other is full of anger" is also due to the lack of common sense foundation of the public; To put it bigger,The concept of common sense of a society determines the superstructure of the whole society, and whether we have the rule of law, democracy, and a free life depends on whether we have the common sense of the rule of law, democracy, and freedom.
Break the utilitarian barrier and respond to the drastic changes of the times with "soft power".Many people often have such a cognitive mistake: "If you have a skill in hand, you will not worry about it for life." This may have been a reality in ancient societies, but it is dangerous in a pluralistic and ever-changing modern society.
Under the wave of layoffs and unemployment, many skilled people have no place to live, especially with the rapid development of science and technology and the drastic changes of the times, many job skills may become obsolete and eliminated in an instant, and even an entire industry will disappear. 
In such an era, what really determines a person's lifelong development is his underlying ability, including common sense, logic, cognition, thinking ability, etc., and this "soft power" is the ultimate goal of general reading.
Break the black hole of thinking and make sense of the complex world with "insight".In today's society, "thinking" is a hot word, and various books and courses to cultivate and train higher-order thinking are emerging in an endless stream. Logic and thinking are important, but it is difficult for a good woman to cook without riceWithout the support of general reading, thinking will only become a bottomless black hole.
General reading can provide the most adequate nourishment for various thinking models, it is like a warehouse, only by linking thinking with general knowledge, can we truly improve our thinking power and insight, truly have a comprehensive vision, and understand the complex society and world in front of us.
Break the hole of ignorance and become a more complete person with "general knowledge".Plato's famous "cave metaphor" reveals the terrible ignorance and fear of man in captivity. We live in society, so why not be a bigger cave cage? From the moment a person comes to society, he is no longer a complete and sound person, he may be superstitious by power, deceived by lies, and distorted by all kinds of different groups, interests, skin colors, and values. 
The purpose of reading is to break these invisible shackles and obstacles, so that people can return to others, so that people can return to sound and complete from incompleteness, and read thoroughlyThis is the ultimate meaning of reading.
Many things are scarce because they are important, and they are important because they are scarce, and general reading is the same for us today. Whether it is a child, a student who is learning, or a middle-aged or even an elderly person, general reading is a necessary choice for our lifelong learning. However, general reading is so large and complex, and there is a lack of a perfect general education system in society, which makes general reading a mountain difficult for most people to achieve.
To this end, we have selected a set of "general reading" books that are most suitable for the public's self-learning, which are divided into three major topics: "humanities", "social sciences" and "natural sciences", involving 19 disciplines such as art, philosophy, finance, medicine, etc., and 4 overarching books, forming a total of 23 general education books of "mastering the underlying logic: the way of thinking of various disciplines". This set of bibliographies is clearly and completely, covering almost all areas and levels of general reading, and each book has been selected by us, and this book is a classic. Click on the product card below to collect it with one click.