Hitchhiker’s Guide to Law Books

You wouldn’t read a law book unless you were a law student, and we’re not talking about exceptions here. They are known to be very long, dull, and often very difficult to read. It can be said that some lawyers make money by deciphering the many puzzles hidden in the law books. Money is an incentive – the word “incentive” here means “a reward offered to persuade you to do something you don’t want to do – read long, boring and difficult books” as Lemony Snicket writes in his book The Bad Debut.

It’s hard to explain how reading a law degree involves saying there are a lot of law books! It seems that there is no end to laws, cases and law books and this is where the problem arises. How many books can you buy when law books aren’t cheap at all? Some books are available free of charge as e-books and cases are also available on the internet. But law books contain more than law and business; they contain the editorial notes and the structure that the authors and scholars who published the book have defined as the manner and order in which these cases are to be studied and compared.

Law books are generally expensive but there are still a few places where bookstores sell them at a reasonable price or you can even buy used books from these stores. Plus, you can even trade books in or sell the books to them when you no longer need them. In Dhaka, the most popular places to find law books are Nilkhet, New Market, Bangla Academy and the University of Dhaka Publishing Center at TSC; even students from outside Dhaka prefer to buy books from here as the price is low and reasonable in bookstores. But you will have to haggle a lot here to get your book reasonably priced, as more often than not the sellers here try to trick people into asking for more than the price they would actually sell it for.

In addition, there are a good number of bookstores in the Supreme Court area where the books are sold at affordable prices. You can search for law books on the ground floor of the High Court in Dhaka and also on the premises of the Court of Judges. Are all the bookstores listed here in Dhaka and you are far from the capital? Do not worry! Because there are also stores outside of Dhaka where you can buy law books and of course at an affordable price.

In Chittagong, Andorkilla is a good place to get your books. If you are in Rajshahi, you can go to Shaheb Bazar near Sonadhighi Mor where you can find law books. Barisal University Campus, Karnakathi and Barisal Sadar Road may be the places you are looking for, if you are in Barisal. Law books are also available near the Kushtia Islamic University campus.

This is by no means an exhaustive guide to finding law books; you can find many more after arduous and enthusiastic digs. You will notice that all kinds of law books, English and Indian law books, law books written in Bengali, books written by different writers from Asia or England, are usually found in the aforementioned bookstores.

The writer is a law student at the University of Dhaka.