This is a memoir written by James David Vance, who was born in Middletown (also known as the Steel City), Ohio, located within the Rust Belt. Vance came from a Scottish-Irish working-class community plagued by poverty and poor social mobility. While most members of the community had been stuck at the bottom of the social ladder for generations, Vance graduated from Yale Law School and managed to move up the social ladder. This book not only recounts his journey to success, but also highlights the crises faced by white working-class Americans and examines the causal factors behind these social issues.

Hi, welcome to Bookey. Today we will unlock the book Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis.

The book was written by J. D. Vance, who was born in Middletown, Ohio, within the Rust Belt. While he is white, he is not a member of the White Anglo-Saxon Protestants—the first group to settle in the Northeastern United States. Vance is of Scottish-Irish descent, and his community consists of mostly non-college-educated, working-class individuals whose ancestors had been brought over to American South as day laborers. The subsequent generations had worked as sharecroppers, coal miners, and factory workers. They have been called “rednecks,” “white trash,” and “hillbillies” by other Americans, the last of which lends itself to the title of this book.

Vance was only thirty-one years old when he wrote this memoir. At the time, he had no notable achievements. He hadn’t been elected as senator or governor, nor had he started a company with a market value of one billion dollars or a non-profit organization that would change the world. In the first thirty-one years of his life, his biggest success was graduating from Yale Law School.

However, this memoir written by a “nobody” became a bestseller on Amazon and in The New York Times—even earning recommendations from influential Silicon Valley figures such as Bill Gates and Peter Thiel, author of Zero to One. Hillbilly Elegy was also adapted into a movie directed by renowned director Ron Howard, whose filmography includes A Beautiful Mind and The Da Vinci Code.

What makes this book so popular, then? There are two primary reasons. First, Vance’s story is inspirational. For someone born into a poor, chaotic family in an impoverished city, success is a strange. Many people who share the same background find themselves in the deep end. Against all odds, however, Vance managed to move up the social ladder and become a self-made businessman. The second reason is societal. Not only does this memoir detail Vance’s past, but it also reflects the living conditions of white blue-collar workers, offering insight into a real facet of American society. Through Vance’s perspective, readers can explore the challenges faced by the white American working class and learn the causes behind them. For this reason, many people regard Vance as the spokesman for white working-class Americans. Some critics even believe that this book, which articulates the mentality of said demographic, explains why Donald Trump was so well-liked among this demographic and how he came to win the 2016 election with their support.

For nearly a ten billion dollar fraud, what meticulous planning is required? How did a school dropout with no medical background deceive the medical technology establishment and even political giants? In “Bad Blood”, the author, John Carreyrou, uses a calm and objective style of writing to reveal the shocking fraudulent activity at the heart of Theranos, Elizabeth Holmes’ company. In his research for the book, Carreyrou interviewed over 150 people, including sixty former employees. He drew upon the comprehensive background detail they provided to uncover the truth. Carreyrou tears apart the legendary company that built on lies. He reveals to the reader how the fraud was executed.

Hi, welcome to Bookey. Today we will unlock the book Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup.

Before we begin, let us try to imagine a particular type of product, a portable medical “magic box”. It can be kept at home, produce a diagnosis, and suggest a treatment plan. Whenever you feel physically unwell, all you need to do is to open this magic box, use the needle on top to prick your finger, let a drop of blood fall into the box, and this magic box will provide over two hundred professional test results. With this device, not only would you be able to track your physical condition instantaneously, the data from the blood test would be transmitted online to your doctor. They can then send over more comprehensive consultation notes and advise on your medication going forward. With such a magic box, you would be able to accomplish the entire process of a doctor’s consultation without stepping out of your door. Is this a product you would hope to own?  

This is not a fantasy. Once upon a time, someone from Silicon Valley created such a product. The entrepreneur was a passionate follower of Steve Jobs. Like Jobs, had believed that “the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.” For this revolutionary dream, this individual dropped out of Stanford University, gathered a group of like-minded talents, and created a company that sold medical apparatus. Soon it was estimated to be worth $9 billion USD.

This person, who founded a company they called Theranos, was none other than Elizabeth Holmes. It was she who came up with this captivating idea and proceeded to use an irresistibly charming manner to rake in investment. She attracted business world legends, such as the Oracle founder Larry Ellison, to be her shareholders. She was even successful in persuading military and political leaders, like former U.S. Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, and former Defense Minister William Perry, to join the Board of Directors. These significant figures provided a shield for the company. Their credibility helped her company’s value ascend in the market, such that, at one point, it was the most successful Silicon Valley start-up. 

At the helm of Theranos, Holmes dreamt of becoming a hero destined to save humanity. Yet ultimately, the dream melted as everyone found out that the magic product was just an illusion Holmes had created. The bubble was burst when everyone shockingly realized that the Theranos company Holmes’ had created was the biggest medical fraud in history.

Have you ever suffered abuse, sexual assault, a serious car accident, or some other injuries? Life often leaves us with too many psychological traumas and nightmarish memories. We struggle to get rid of them and forget them, only to find we can’t. The brain and body never forget the psychological trauma caused by an event, and it is not “all in one’s head,” but rather has a physiological basis. This book will take us through the secret of the body that never forgets trauma.

Hi, welcome to Bookey. Today we’ll unlock the book The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma.

Let’s first hear a story. Marilyn was a tall, athletic-looking woman in her mid-thirties who worked as a nurse. She met a fireman named Michael while playing tennis at the sports club and the two began a relationship. They often talked about tennis and movies together. Marilyn said that she usually avoided men, but this relationship gradually made her feel comfortable.

As they got closer, one Saturday evening, Marilyn invited Michael to stay over at her apartment. She described feeling “uptight and unreal” as soon as they were alone together, having very little sense of what would happen next. After a few glasses of wine and several episodes of a TV show, they fell asleep together in bed.

At around two in the morning, when they were fast asleep, Michael turned over. When Marilyn felt his body touch hers, she exploded—pounding him with her fists, scratching and biting, screaming, “You bastard, you bastard!” Michael, startled awake, grabbed his belongings and fled.

After he left, Marilyn felt deeply humiliated and hated herself for what she had done. So she turned to the therapist Bessel Van der Kolk for help in dealing with her terror of men and her inexplicable rage attacks.

So why did Marilyn act like that? After several treatments，Van der Kolk found that Marilyn had never been able to let go of her childhood experience of sexual assault by her father.

In fact, on many occasions, even if things have changed and time has long passed, we may still go out of control due to some tiny danger signals that trigger our horrible memories. People often think that it’s “all in one’s head,” but the book The Body Keeps the Score suggests that psychological trauma actually has a physiological basis.

So what are the physical and psychological effects of trauma? What does the body have to do with trauma? How can it be treated? This book will give us the answers.

The author of this book is Bessel Van der Kolk, who is the world’s best-known master of trauma treatment. He is the founder and medical director of the Trauma Center in Brookline in the United States, a Professor of Psychiatry at Boston University Medical School and director of the National Complex Trauma Treatment Network. With more than 30 years of experience in cutting-edge research and clinical practice in the field of psychological trauma, he is an expert in both medication and psychotherapy, with a creative insight on trauma. He also frequently conducts in-depth exchanges and cooperation with all the founders of major trauma treatments in the United States. As one of the authorities in the field of psychological trauma treatment, his theory has greatly influenced the mainstream approaches to trauma treatment today.

Every entrepreneur is eager to know what kind of startup can gain a foothold in the business world, and understand how to make innovative products, face competition, assemble teams, sell products and services, and ensure a company's sustainable development. In this book, Peter Thiel, known as the "Silicon Valley venture capital godfather," gives the right answers based on his entrepreneurial history and experience. In his opinion, startups must find unique ways to innovate if they want to succeed.

Hi, welcome to Bookey. Today we will unlock the book “Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future.”

For those who are interested in starting a business, they will always be anxious before starting a business. What kind of entrepreneurial project is more likely to succeed? Should they enter a red ocean to participate in the competition or strive to find a blue ocean to explore the unknown world? Going into a red ocean means that there are existing and successful cases that can be learned from and referred to. But when faced with many competitors, it is not easy to survive and win. However, choosing blue oceans is not necessarily better than red oceans. Although there is not much competition in blue oceans, if the market is not developed, the road ahead will be full of unknowns and challenges for any pioneers. Whether they can keep going depends on their determination and capabilities.

Every entrepreneur is eager to know what kind of startup can gain a foothold in the business world, and how to make innovative products, face competition, assemble teams, sell products and services, and ensure a company's sustainable development. This book gives the right answers to these critical and highly practical questions.

The author, Peter Thiel, who is known as the “Silicon Valley venture capital godfather” and a thinker in the investment world. Which companies come to our mind when we think of the most successful startups in the past decades? Probably Facebook, LinkedIn, and Tesla? All these startup stars are closely related to Peter Thiel.

Peter Thiel is a successful entrepreneur who co-founded PayPal in 1998 and sold it to eBay for US$ 1.5 billion in 2002, bringing e-commerce to a new era. But what is more commendable is his investment foresight for startups, as we mentioned in another bookey “The Facebook Effect” in which we introduced him as the first Facebook investor. He then co-founded Founder Fund, which has provided early funding for LinkedIn, SpaceX, Yelp and dozens of outstanding technology startups. Former colleagues ran many of these companies. They have been dubbed the “PayPal Mafia,” which includes Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla.

Why are some nations wealthy and others poor? Why is it that vastly different institutions can emerge in two nations of similar backgrounds and origins, with a huge disparity in the respective quality of life of their citizens? Just what exactly determines a country’s future? This book combs through the developmental history of human civilization and analyses the case studies of over twenty countries in great detail to show us why different countries have different institutions, and how good and bad institutions can influence a nation’s destiny.

Hi, welcome to Bookey. Today we will unlock the book Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty.

What is the greatest challenge facing mankind today? Every person has a different answer to this question. Jared Diamond, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the bestselling sociology classic Guns, Germs and Steel, which we have unlocked for you in a previous bookey, believes that the problem of income disparity among various countries around the world can be considered the greatest challenge facing humanity today.

The per capita income of Egypt is only 12% that of the United States – this is a shocking figure, and it is arguably one of the key factors for Egypt’s political instability. However, this example is not even the largest disparity known to exist between countries. The gap between the per capita income of the United States and that of the poorest countries in the world is much larger – in those countries, even a full meal might be considered a luxury. 

What exactly causes this disparity? Why are some nations prosperous with a flourishing population, while others are impoverished with their people in deep suffering? Can poor countries ever change their destiny, or are they doomed to fail? Since the dawn of time, countless experts have tried to answer this question. The book Why Nations Fail provides us with a short answer: institutions. 

While this answer appears to be deceptively simple, it is full of complexities. It took the authors of this book fifteen years of dedicated research to arrive at this answer. Both authors are leading economists: Daron Acemoglu is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and recipient of the prestigious John Bates Clark Award, and James Robinson is a professor at Harvard University and world-renowned expert in Latin American and African studies.

Over the course of fifteen years, these two experts pored over thousands of years of human history, and compared the developmental processes of over twenty countries. They came to the conclusion that differences in institutions are responsible for the different fates of various countries around the world. In this book, Acemoglu and Robinson analyze volumes of historical case studies to show us why different countries developed different institutions in the first place, how the earliest institutions came about, and how good and bad institutions can influence a nation’s destiny.

After many years of hard study and medical practice, Paul finally caught a glimpse of his own Promised Land. He was poised to receive a tenure-track professorship and a chance to start his own neuroscience lab from the Stanford University School of Medicine. At that moment, he joined the 0.12 unlucky people out of every ten thousand who contracts lung cancer before the age of 36. From then on, he began to explore the truth behind death as a doctor and a patient. While we listen in to this bookey, Paul, its author, has already passed away. His breath has turned into air, yet the courage he possessed in the face of death lives on.

Hi, welcome to Bookey. Today we will unlock the book When Breath Becomes Air.

For every ten thousand people in the modern world, of those under the age of 36, only 0.12 will contract lung cancer. The book’s author Paul Kalanithi happened to be one of this tiny unfortunate minority. At Stanford University, Kalanithi attained dual honors in his Bachelor’s degree in English literature and human biology. He went on to earn a Master of Philosophy in History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine at the University of Cambridge. Finally, at the Yale School of Medicine, his stellar research was acknowledged with a PhD. During his six to seven years of residency, he worked a hundred hours a week. For his efforts in this period of intensive research, the American Academy of Neurological Surgery acknowledged him with their highest award. In short, at Stanford University, he was hailed as one of the most gifted doctors. However, in his final year of residency, as he was poised to receive a tenure-track professorship as well as an opportunity to head his own neuroscience lab at Stanford University School of Medicine, Kalanithi was denied the time to savor the fruits of his years of hard labor. He was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer and forced to confront his mortality.

Death itself is not shocking but having life snatched away prematurely often leaves people with a tragic sense of regret. From the moment when a person is diagnosed with cancer, they will inevitably yearn to set the clock back and live their life again. Yet, a fact is a fact. Going back to the old life, as well as the future that one imagined, is now seen to be nothing more than extravagant dreams. What should one do in this predicament? Merely wait for death to come? No. Paul Kalanithi decided to continue living as he would have lived had he not been given his tumultuous cancer diagnosis. The Paul of the past had wanted a child. After much deliberation, a post-cancer Paul made the same decision to extend his family, even if this might make saying goodbye even more excruciating.

Paul had always regarded medicine to be his life-long mission. After his diagnosis, Paul went back to the operating theatre whenever his physical condition allowed. Paul had always wanted to write. So, despite suffering intense physical pain from his condition, he propped himself up and forced his weakened frame to write ceaselessly. And finally, he completed When Breath Becomes Air. Although cancer had the effect of accelerating Paul’s life to its end, he remained faithful to his heart’s desires. He kept asking himself what was meaningful, what was truly important. Then, he channeled all his remaining strength and spirit into those enterprises. 

When he finally came to the brink and faced death, he smiled. Paul said, ‘I am ready.’ He passed away with tranquility. His attitude was constant. He ended his life in the same spirit that he set out on his final arduous journey; calm, accepting, and positive in the face of the unimaginable. He never thought to ask, “Why me?” but rather would think, “Why not me?” What happened to Paul was heartbreaking, but he never painted it as a tragedy.

Were you under the impression that the Silk Road was just a trade route? Or a ‘belt’ around the world? The history of the Silk Road is a condensed version of world history. The historical journeys of countries don't happen in isolation – but are instead all inextricably linked to the Silk ‘Roads’. The book’s author redefines world history from the perspective of the Silk Road. By reading this book, you will discover that the Silk Road not only encompasses the history of humans, but also determines the future of the world.

Hi, welcome to Bookey. Today we'll unlock the book The Silk Roads: A New History of the World.

When discussing the Silk Road, most people view it as an ancient trade route that connects the East with the West. History bestowed it with a great deal of mystery and legend: camels and goods travelled on the trade route; merchants of different races, different countries, and diverse cultural backgrounds interacted and traded with each other; Chinese silk and porcelain flowed along this trade route to various countries in the west. Silver from western countries also moved to the east on the same path…

This account of The Silk Roads that we will uncover today uses multiple threads to tell the stories that took place on the Silk Road, starting more than 2,000 years ago. The book begins its story with the creation of the Silk Road. Using a broad time frame, it recounts the stories of countries from their peak to their decline, and from humble beginnings to becoming entities that wield absolute power. It has shaped world history into a brand-new system. It reveals to people that for much of history, the world's axis revolved around the Silk Road. Each countries history doesn't evolve in isolation and is more or less associated with the Silk Road. From the Silk Road, we can see that the world is smaller and more accessible than we've previously imagined. World history has been redefined.

Once the book The Silk Roads was published, it quickly became a best-selling book around the world, and was even listed as No.1 in World History on Amazon UK! It was also no.1 in the genre of Historical Geography on Amazon US and no.1 on the list of non-fiction best sellers in India. It was also recommended by various organizations and figures. The People's Daily in China recommended it twice in 19 days, which was an unprecedented move by the most influential Chinese publication. The Times commented on the book saying: “Many books have been written which claim to be ‘A New History of the World.’ This rare one fully deserves the title.” The Economist stated: Frankopan uses exquisite and intelligent language to interpret a world history revolving around the East. The famous British historian William Dalrymple lavishly praised the book by saying: “ambition that is rare … a remarkable book on many levels, a proper historical epic of dazzling range and achievement.”

Peter Frankopan is the author of this book and a famous British historian. He has received considerable attention from mainstream academic historians around the world because he's shown a talent for examining the anatomy of the contemporary world from a perspective that differs from European history. For this book, The Silk Roads, in particular, he consulted all the literary and historical resources that he could find in libraries around the world. Finally, he wrote this well sourced book which included nearly a hundred citations for each chapter on average, as can be seen from its numerous endnotes. 

This book is a comprehensive first-hand research conducted on America’s millionaires. The authors explain simple spending and saving habits to attain financial independence. They debunk the myths about the millionaire lifestyle, showing us that most times we are misinformed about what actually means to be rich. The key to this book shows that the millionaire next door is usually frugal, saves regularly and invests wisely.

Hi, welcome to Bookey. Today we will unlock the book The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America’s Wealthy.

After years of research, in this book Stanley and Danko share strategies or secrets of ordinary American people that have accumulated wealth to the point of becoming millionaires.

Its main premise is that people who look rich may not actually be rich, they overspend often on symbols of wealth, but actually have modest portfolios and, sometimes, big debts. On the other hand, actual millionaires tend to live in middle-income neighborhoods, drive economical cars, wear simple watches and buy suits off the rack.

Let me ask you a question, what is your impression of millionaires? Do they go to high-end venues; wear luxury watches; drive exotic cars; buy yachts; live in mansions; build wine cellars; and enjoy luxury brands?

If your answer is yes, chances are you’ve been duped by the carefully created image of the rich in the media. Real millionaires don’t look like this. They don’t splurge. They’re frugal and low-key. They may even be living next door.

Those who wear gold and silver are the “typical rich”; illusion created by the consumer market, which poses two problems. First, it makes us feel that the kind of life wealthy people have is unattainable to us, which means is far away from us and no matter what we do we wouldn’t be able to keep up with that. Second, it induces us to imitate the “typical rich” model deliberately, and embark on the road of high consumption as the “pseudo rich”. Once falling into the consumption trap carefully arranged by the consumption age, a person can hardly rely on their own consciousness to get out.

The Millionaire Next Door also reveals the truth about the pseudo rich. What is a pseudo rich? It’s someone who has high income but also high consumption of their     made-up needs making it difficult or nearly impossible to save and accumulate wealth regardless of what he or she does. They cater to the “typical rich” illusion of the age of consumption. As a result, they may seem to have a high standard of living but will never achieve financial freedom. In contrast, true millionaires do not get caught up in the lifestyle of appearances.

The book is a highly statistical exploration of America’s millionaires, which consists of households who have a net worth of 1-10 million dollars. The authors, both of them being scholars, were studying and researching the profiles of the wealthy and accidentally found a very interesting pattern of consumption, investment and savings within them, what they like to call ‘the hidden secrets of the wealthy’.

As a result, Stanley turned these observations into a series of best-sellers of wealthy people, the most influential of which was The Millionaire Next Door. After it was published in 1996, it stayed on the New York Times best-seller list for 88 weeks and sold for more than a million copies.

He explains that the public’s view of wealth is wrong. Income and wealth are not the same. Both the rich and the pseudo rich have high incomes, but the rich accumulate much more wealth than the pseudo rich. Second, one can hardly become a millionaire through luck, inheritance, high social status, or even high intelligence. Still, one can accumulate wealth through self-restraint, frugality, and hard work, eventually becoming a real millionaire.

Can people change themselves? Who do we actually compete against? How can we be free? What does happiness mean? Should we pursue being the best or embrace being ordinary? It is not difficult to find answers to these questions over the course of these five nights of conversation between a youth and a philosopher. In this dialogue, the youth represents you and me; the philosopher is an incarnation of the psychologist Alfred Adler. Together these two personas explore some of life’s fundamental truths. If you seek enlightenment and want to understand how you can live in a less complex and confusing way, with a freer and more joyous mindset, this book will be of great help.

Hi, welcome to Bookey. Today we will unlock the book The Courage to be Disliked.

The book starts with a question. Is the world simple or complicated?

A young person holds the view that the child’s world is almost certainly a simple one, but, with age, the world gradually reveals its complexity. The romantic ideals of childhood soon vanish. With age and experience, in the blink of an eye, brutal realism sets in. As people mature, they are beset with complicated interpersonal relationships. They become tangled up in all sorts of responsibilities. Despite this perception, a philosopher continues to advocate, and with great earnestness, that the world is, in fact, extremely simple. This philosopher claims that everyone can achieve happiness at any time. The youth, who cannot accept such a perspective, visits this philosopher, seeks a debate and wants to shatter the philosopher’s Utopian fantasies.

This youth introduces some examples of various types of suffering in the real world. Yet, the philosopher is steadfast. His answer remains the same, believing that the world is not complicated. Instead, it is the youth who perceives the world to be complicated. The philosopher believes that we do not live in an objective world but, rather, a subjective world built on an individual’s experience of it. Hence everyone perceives the world differently from the next person. Such a subjective perspective can be understood by considering the different feelings people will have in different seasons when they touch the water taken from a well. Underground water almost always holds a stable temperature of 18 degrees all year round, summer and winter. However, people tend to perceive this water to be cool and refreshing in the summer and mild and warm in the winter. On the surface, this appears to be just an illusion brought about by changes in the environment, and yet, it is not fully an illusion. To every person who drinks the water, the coolness or warmth of the well water is an undeniable fact. Such an undeniable reality is what the philosopher is referring to when he says that each person’s world is subjective. Nobody can escape the reality of their own perceptions and the subjectivity of their lived experiences.  

The philosopher highlights that the youth’s belief that the world is complex, chaotic, and incomprehensible has nothing to do with the world itself. It is something inside and has to do with the youth’s worldview. If this young person wishes the world to be simple, He needs first to take off his tinted glasses and make some other adjustments. Following the philosopher’s mind, not only will the world become simple, but anyone, without exception, can enjoy that simplicity and, through it, achieve happiness at any time.

Written in the British critical realist style of the 19th century, the tragic story of Tess of the d’Urbervilles is probably Thomas Hardy’s most famous work. Tess, the novel’s heroine, is a peasant girl, pure in heart and attractive. The hardships she experiences in the story eventually destroy her. Tess’s life is quite impoverished. She must work to support her poor relatives. Previously, Tess’s family were of aristocratic descent, but at the start of the book, they have fallen from favor and lost their fortune. Alec d’Urberville, the lascivious heir to a significant inheritance, takes advantage of Tess’s naivety. His seduction leads to her being disgraced. Tess’s true beloved, learning of her lost virginity, abandons her. Afterwards, Tess’s life spirals down, in cruel steps, to ruin.

Hi, welcome to Bookey. Today we will unlock Tess of the D'Urbervilles by the British realist author Thomas Hardy.

Hardy was born in 1840. His father was a stonemason in Dorset, England. Hardy didn’t move away and settled to live in this part of the British countryside for most of his life. He loved nature and derived a great deal of inspiration for his books from the landscape and the outdoors. Most of his novels are set in the countryside, presenting a strong local flavor. The ancient name of his home region was Wessex. He often referrers to Wessex in his novels to define the local character. With Hardy Wessex Novels became a whole genre of English literature, but Hardy always held the title of the genre’s preeminent writer. Tess of the D'Urbervilles is an exemplar of this phenomenon. The novel is regarded as the peak of Hardy's creative career.

The story of Tess relates the tragic life of a pure woman beset by hardships, suffering, and abuse. The book’s heroine, Tess, is born into a poor peasant family, victims of the economic recession that hit Europe in the 1870s, known as the Long Depression. Tess's father stumbles upon the knowledge that he may be a descendant of the noble d'Urberville family. He sends Tess to these wealthy relatives in order to stake a claim that they are of the same family thereby overcome their current economic misfortune. Tess gains employment on the d'Urberville estate, but the lascivious d’Urberville son, Alec, forces himself on her and rapes her. From this point, the real tragedy begins.

This novel was written at the end of the 19th century in England’s Victorian era. When it was first published, it caused a great stir for several reasons. Firstly, Hardy created an impressive female figure who rebelled against many forms of social oppression. Hardy lambasted the traditional moral standards of Victorian social classes and added a controversial subtitle to his piece - “A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented”. Hardy was severely criticized by the public for this subtitle as his heroine is a woman who, in their view, was impure because she lost her virginity. Hardy responded to this criticism in the preface to his book’s first edition. He quoted the words of St. Jerome, the Latin translator of the Bible, “If an offence come out of the truth, better it is that the offence come than that the truth be concealed.” The way he stood up for his narrative shows Hardy's courage and his rebellious spirit against the rotten religious morality of the time.