Buddhism: Its essence and development, by Edward Conze

A very good introduction to the development and main philosophy of Buddhism. Chapters 4-7 are particular useful.

Windhorse Publications. 2001. ISBN 1899579400.

The Hero with Thousand Faces, by Joseph Campbell

the passage of hero = part of Jung's individuation = part of the enlightenment of Buddha

Jung is closer to a  scientific/thinking approach, while Campbell is closer to a spiritual/intuitive style (and thus his wording sometimes has flavor of religious text).

The book contains plenty of myths/fairytale/dreams/rituals, and I hope it would help my future Jung reading.  Another shining point is the book has some revelation of Campbell's feeling or intuition on the subject of individuation.

The weak part lies in that Campbell did not clearly and precisely summarize each main point, either did he build a clear model, nor drill into the deep root to figure out why (as Jung did). He is more like a poet instead of a researcher.

There are many parts I did not fully understand. Will go back for a second reading in the future.
Finally decide to buy a copy because Amazon has a good promotion so I use this book to reach $35 to get free shipping. :)

Read most parts from the Commemorative Edition, 2004. ISBN 0691119244, by Princeton University Press. This edition is after 2nd edition, with a long introduction (which is so so) and some expanded notes (which is helpful but not essential). The remaining is from ISBN 9781577315933, by New World Library. I think their contents are identical, but Princeton edition has far better printing and formatting. The font of commemorative texts in the New World Library is too small, a pain.

The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, by Sogyal Rinpoche

This book is OK. The interesting part is the many practices that the author briefly summarized, which gives me a glimpse of Tibetan Buddhism. However, the book lacks the author's insight of the nature/philosophy of Tibetan buddhism.

• Publisher: HarperSanFrancisco. 2012. ISBN 0062507931.