The great philosopher Voltaire once said “Reading makes people see and think clearly.” If you want to be a better self, try the following books.

Pride and Prejudice

Pride and Prejudice is kind of a literary Rosetta Stone, the inspiration, basis, and model for so many modern novels. For a book written in the early 19th century, its modernity is surprising only until you realize that this is the novel that in many ways defined what a modern novel is.

A Wild Child’s Guide to Endangered Animals

From New York Times bestselling author Millie Marotta comes this gorgeous celebration of the animal kingdom. Highlighting the difficulty of 43 endangered species from around the world, the book takes readers on a trip through fresh water, oceans, forests, mountains, deserts, grasslands and wetlands while learning about rare and well-known animals and their habitats.

Patriarchy and Capitalism

Chizuko Ueno, a leading Japanese sociologist, feminist (女权主义) critic and public intellectual, has been a pioneer in women’s studies and the author of many books, including Patriarchy and Capitalism, which discusses the status of Japanese women.

Know My Name

Chanel Miller’s breathtaking memoir is praised to be the Best Book of the Year in People magazine. In this book, she recalls all her whole life. It’s a story of trauma (创伤) and transcendence (超越), shining with the courage required to move through suffering and live a full and beautiful life.

Don’t you have time for reading? If you are interested in non-fiction books, here are some good choices for you.

A Room of One’s Own

This essay by English writer Virginia Woolf is based on several lectures given to two women’s colleges at Cambridge University in 1928. In the essay, Woolf describes that it’s circumstance not talent alone, that allows men to be more successful at writing. Women, in other words, spend so much time cooking, cleaning, and tending to their children that they have no time left for art. To write well, therefore, a woman must have a “room of her own”. While on its surface, this essay appears to be only about writing, it is actually about wealth and class, freedom and confinement, and the power struggle between sexes.

The Art of War

Written by ancient Chinese warrior Sun Tzu, The Art of War is widely considered to be one of the best books about military strategies in human history. Consisting of 13 chapters, each dealing with a separate aspect about how to fight a war, the book has been translated into every major language and has thousands of editions. For centuries, it has been used to train world leaders for its detailed study of military strategies and effective leadership.

Letter to My Daughter

This book of essays by Maya Angelou, a respectable African-American poet, is written for “the daughter she never had” — the millions of women, both young and old, that she considers to be her “family”. From the viewpoint of a caring, older relative, this book contains lessons selected from her own life experiences, including the birth of her only child, a son, as well as the development and loss of friendship.

A Brief History of Time

If you’re short of time, then why not read about, well, the creation of time? This book, first published in 1998 from brilliant scientist and mathematician Stephen Hawking, explores mind-bending questions about the creation of the universe, including if and when it will end, and if so, how. Despite its heavy subject matter, Hawking addresses these questions in a way that’s easy to understand, even for those who know little about physics.

With the coming of online book buying, many have predicted that the bookstores will disappear eventually. To the book enthusiasts, nothing beats walking through a physical bookshop, looking at all the covers, picking up large heavy books and turning them over. The smell of ink on paper, and conversations with strangers about authors are amazing for them. And we’re grateful that they’re beautiful bookstores still out there.

Designed for the music director Max Glucksmann, this building was opened as a show-stopping theater called Teatro Gran Splendid in Buenos Aires in 1919. After nearly a century of hosting tango (探戈舞) masters, the great space was rented by a firm. Grupo Ilhsa, in 2000. The former theater now serves as the group’s flagship bookstore; more than 1 million people visit it annually.

The Book Barge is a 60-foot canal boat bookshop. Inspired by the Slow Food movement. Henshaw says. “We hope to help spread a less hurried and busy lifestyle filled with leisure and pleasure here, through cups of tea, conversations, culture and of course, an extremely good Book Barge purchase.”

At La Caverne aux Livres in north of Paris, an old postal train station and several mail-sorting train cars have become home to a ranging collection of used books for sale. Visitors often spend hours looking through the broad selection there, surrounded by an atmosphere of old letters and dreams of faraway places.

For those who regard bookstores with great respect, welcome to Selexyz Dominicanen: a 13-century Dominican church in Maastricht, Holland. Later, the big space of the church was used to store bicycles. Several years ago, the church was changed to a bookstore. This glorious Gothic (哥特式的) building was redecorated by a design firm; the result is nothing short of a miracle.