If you want to talk about something in general, you can use a plural count noun with the zero-article before it. So you can search through Google or Amazon and find many books with such titles that include: The book of trees The book shaders The book of duels The book of were-wolves The book of treasures etc., etc. The zero-article plus a plural count noun makes an indefinite reference. If you want to talk about uncountable nouns in a general way, then also use use the zero article, so The book of life The book of time etc. In fact, before a single count noun, a determiner is almost always used, so all your examples in your second group would be unnatural and, frankly, incorrect. You can, of course, use the definite article before a single count noun and make a *generic* reference. For example, in the song title: The eye of the tiger *the tiger* does not refer to a real-world tiger, but to a proto-typical tiger, or one that represents the species as a whole. For more about generic references, see: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jlawler/000001.html

Sorry, Frank, but we're confused too, now. It isn't at all clear what you mean by most of these phrases. You'll need to give a bit more of an explanation before we can tell you the best way of saying what you want to. The first set: For me, the only phrase which makes sense is 'the life of individuals'. For example, you could say 'The author writes very well about the life of individuals in eighteenth century rural China.' Can you explain what you're trying to describe about the book and the class? It's not clear what this phrases are meant to be refer to. Second set: Sorry, but none of the phrases in your second set are possible grammatically. As I'm sure you've learnt, you generally can't have a singular countable noun without an article or other determiner. For example : ' ... of student' just isn't proper English.