Friend:

There are many courses in middle school, so you naturally don't have much time to read extracurricular books. But try to ask yourself: Do you really don't have a minute and a half every day? If you can spare half a minute every day, you can read at least three or four pages a day, one hundred pages a month and four or five books a year. In addition, you can't just read three or four pages a day during the holidays. Whether you can study after class is not a matter of time, but a matter of determination.

There are many people who are much busier than you. Many people's knowledge is acquired in busy work. Franklin, an American writer, scientist and revolutionary, worked as a coolie in the printing bureau when he was young. All his books are read in his spare time while working. Needless to say, you should remember our founding father, Dr. Sun Yat-sen. Are you busier than the old man who is busy with the revolution? No matter how busy his life is, there is not a day when he doesn't take time to read a few pages. As long as you look at his founding strategy and Sun Wen theory, you will know that he is not only a politician, but also a scholar. If you don't read books and talk about revolution, you won't know where the "light" is. You just run around and bump, and you'll never succeed. Mr. Sun knows this truth best, so his theory pays special attention to "knowledge".

Human knowledge is progressing day by day. It goes without saying that if you don't try to follow it, you will fall behind. It is particularly important to develop the habit of reading and find interest in learning. If you don't have a normal hobby, you have nothing to trust in your spare time, and you may be tempted by bad habits when you leave school to work in the future. Don't you see that many bureaucrats, businessmen and even teachers who smoke opium now, most of them are not students? You slowly despise them, come to you, and then look at your grades! But if you find an interest in reading, you will be more able to resist temptation than others in the future. You can't find this interest now, and you will never find it in the future. Mortals become more and more numb with age, and now you are not as curious and interesting as a child of three or five years old. When you are one year old, your keen interest will certainly become dull. Darwin once said in his autobiography that he was good at literature and music when he was young, but when he was strong, he gave up literature and music because he studied biology. When he was old, he tried to amuse himself with poetry, but he couldn't find interest. Interest should be cultivated in youth, but it will fade after the normal season. For example, playing tennis, you like to play it when you are in middle school, and you like to play until you are old. It seems that if you miss the opportunity of middle school, it is ten times more difficult to make a wish to study late than to climb the horizon. The same is true of forming the habit of reading.

You may say, you read handouts and textbooks all day at school. Is this reading? Teaching materials are generally used to develop basic knowledge, and it is also necessary to read them. However, if you think that you can do your best by reading handouts and textbooks, you are all wet. First, although there are many kinds of classes in the school, the scope is extremely narrow. Your genius may not be close to all the courses in school, so you study outside class to discover knowledge close to your sexuality. For example, if you are not interested in some kind of homework, it may not be because of sexual differences, but just because the textbook is not suitable for your mouth and stomach. If you can publish your own good books after class, your interest in that kind of homework may be strengthened. Second, reading the handouts and textbooks will inevitably be subject to some restrictions, so it is quite difficult to cultivate interest. For example, there is a novel, which is usually used for recreation for free. How interesting! Once it is used as a teaching material, it will inevitably be boring to read by preparing for the exam. Interest should develop freely, so in order to cultivate reading interest, we should start from reading extracurricular books.

Books can't be finished, and it's useless to read them. Many books are not worth reading. If you read more than one worthless book, you will lose the time and energy to read a valuable book; So you should choose carefully. Naturally, you won't choose, but you should teach critics and experts. I can't tell you the books you have to read, I can tell you the books you don't have to read. Many people have made up their minds not to read the new books published in modern times. Because many popular new books only cater to temporary social psychology, they are really worthless. Only books that are eliminated by the times are permanent and worth reading twice or even countless times. I dare not advise you not to read new books at all, but I hope you pay special attention to this, because there is quite a tendency among modern youth not to read new books. Everything else can learn fashion, but you can't learn fashion by reading and studying. The book I don't need to read is not a new book, but a book about books, which is not worth reading again. Walking into a library, although I see thousands of paper books, I'm afraid it's hard to call ten books "books". You should only read these ten volumes. In these books, you can not only get more accurate knowledge, but also absorb the spirit and methods of scholars' research invisibly. These books can shake your mind and stimulate your thinking. Other books such as the Outline of Literature and the Outline of Science, as well as book reviews in magazines and newspapers, are really something you don't have. It is better to read a national style or 19 ancient poems than to read thousands of poems. Instead of reading thousands of books on Greek philosophy, we should read Plato's Republic.

You may ask me, what books should we middle school students read? This question is difficult to answer. You probably remember that the supplement of Beijing Daily in Beiping asked for "Ten Books Young People Must Read". As a result, some people quoted ten kinds of geometric algebra, while others quoted ten kinds of historical records and Han books. This seems almost absurd to others, but the applicants have their own reasons. Originally, the original intention of this kind of solicitation was to ask one person's standard to become everyone's standard, as if I only like noodles and you can't eat rice. This is a completely wrong view. Everyone's talent, interests, environment and occupation are different. How can ten books be like a panacea for countless young people in the world to read and feel that the same interest has the same effect?

In order to write this letter to you, I went to investigate several British public libraries. The most popular books in their youth reading department can be divided into four categories: (1) adventure novels and travel notes, (2) myths and fables, (3) biological stories, (4) biographies of celebrities and patriotic novels. Representative works include jules verne's Around the World in Eighty Days (Ju 1Esverne: Around the World in Eight Days) and Twenty Wan Li under the Sea. Defoe: Robinson Crusoe}, Dumas' three musketeers, Hawthorne's Strange Books and Tales of Tagore, Kingsley's Legend of Greek Heroes, Fabres's Fabres: Tales of Birds and Animals, Andersen's Fairy Tales, Southey's They: Nelson's Life, and Van Long's Human Life. Although these books are very popular abroad, they are not suitable for young people at home. Most students in China are young and mature, and they are willing to talk about some theories, as if they were serious in middle school. They-including you and me-are not only willing to talk about literature, but also willing to study social issues and even philosophical issues. This is a natural tendency, so we can't ignore it. My personal opinion might as well be discussed with you. Education after the age of fifteen or sixteen should pay attention to the understanding of development, and education before the age of fifteen or sixteen should pay attention to the imagination of development. Therefore, junior high school students should read more fictional words, and senior high school students should read words containing theories.

So far, I haven't answered the question of what books to read. To tell the truth, I don't have the ability to answer, so I haven't read a few "young people's books" myself, and some of them have been read for a long time. For example, in China's book, what I am most happy about is "China? Notes, Shi Shuo Xin Yu, Tao Yuanming's Collection, Li Taibai's Collection, Huajian Collection, Zhang Huiyan's Poetry Collection, A Dream of Red Mansions, etc. Feng, Zhuangzi, Chu Ci, Historical Records, Ancient Poetry Source, Selected Works. Among foreign books, I like Keats and Shelley best. Poems by Gorelidge and Browning, Seven Tragedies of Sophocles, Shakespeare: Hamlet, King and Othello, Goethe: Faust Fassutz (1999- 1999). Ibsen's drama collections, Turgenev's Virgin Land and Father and Son, Dostoevsky's (Dostoevsky: Crime and Punishment), Flaubert's Madame Bovary, Mo Bosang's novels, Koizumi Yakumo's works on Japanese, etc. If I want a supplement to Beijing Daily in Peiping, I might put these antique foreign goods on the table and compile Ten Books Young People Must Read. But I know it's ridiculous. So I dare not answer the question of what books you should read now. If you want to know, consult the experts you know and ask them to specify three or two books for young people to read within their own study scope. If you let a person do everything for you, for example, he is a liberal arts student, he may know that young people must study, which should include social problems, scientific knowledge and so on. But he is not sure about it. We'll just make up one or two things he knows, and you're like asking for directions. At the same time, you should know that reading is like exploring, and you can't rely entirely on the guidance of others. You have to try to find it yourself. I have never heard anyone become a scholar by reading "Ten Young People Must Read" or "One Hundred World Famous Books". Others can only introduce, choose to see yourself.

About reading methods. I can't say more. I just need to make two simple points here. First, every book worth reading must be read at least twice. The first quick reading focuses on awakening the theme and characteristics of the whole article. Read slowly for the second time and critically measure the content of the book. Second, after reading a book, you must write down the outline, wonderful places and your own opinions. Taking notes can not only help you remember, but also force you to be serious and stimulate you to think. With these two points, other trivial methods are needless to say. Everyone has different natural habits, which method you use is more effective, and which method I use is more effective. This is not an overview. You will eventually find your own way, and others can never give you a prescription and let you "make it according to law."

Do you think this letter is too long? Next time I talk about other issues, I will try to be brief.

see you again

Your friend Meng Shi