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Saturday, 18 October 2014
Sunday, 28 September 2014
Three Men in a Boat
During a sociable evening in J.’s room, the three men convince themselves that they each have various illnesses. Their collective diagnosis is overwork, and they prescribe themselves a fortnight’s holiday. A stay in the country and a sea voyage are both ruled out, and they settle instead on a boating trip, travelling on the Thames by day and camping out in the hired boat at night.
They set out the following Saturday. George must work in the City in the morning, and so arranges to join them later that day. The other two, accompanied by the dog and a mountain of luggage, get a cab to Waterloo station, but are unable to find the correct train to Kingston. Eventually they bribe the driver of another train to take them there instead, one of the many humorous set-pieces that make the book more than a straightforward travelogue. George completes the trio at Weybridge, with a dubious-looking parcel tucked under his arm, which turns out to be a banjo and instruction book.
The story is a tapestry of incidents that occur, anecdotes on various topics (including the unreliability of weather forecasts), loosely connected digressions (such as J.'s uncle’s inability to hang pictures), and descriptive pieces on the places that they pass. It is in these descriptive pieces that the author’s original intention of writing a guidebook is most apparent. What he actually achieved was a classic of British humorous writing. Although the book was written over a century ago, it has an enduring, timeless quality.
You can also watch the film.
Source: Book Drum
Thursday, 25 September 2014
Reading is a great way to improve your English
This week the website Learn English is all about literature! Reading is a great way to improve your English - so check out these novels, short stories and poems!
1) Lit2Go - free classic novels, stories and poems from the University of Southern Florida. Read online, listen or download and print them.http://goo.gl/MoKqzY
2) Library of American Short Stories - a great mix of classic and modern short stories http://goo.gl/Y553ZZ
3) Project Gutenberg Australia - Lots of modern classics from Fitzgerald, Orwell, Woolf and more http://goo.gl/heGjSF
4) Booktrust - more than 40 free short stories from award-winning contemporary authors. http://goo.gl/y9LbC2
5) And of course, let's not forget the Stories & Poems sections on LearnEnglish and Learn English Teens!
http://goo.gl/OjoV1o
http://goo.gl/wZOWsI
http://goo.gl/OjoV1o
http://goo.gl/wZOWsI
Source: Learn English-British Council
Wednesday, 24 September 2014
Welcome to the reading world!
A book is a dream that you hold in your hand.
Welcome to the world of books.
Tuesday, 27 May 2014
Lisa Bu: How books can open your mind
Do you usually read books? What kind of books do you like reading? Do you like reading books in English?
Watch the video and do the listening activity:
Then check your answers watching the video with subtitles:
Enjoy it!
Thursday, 3 October 2013
READERS NI1
1st FOUR-MONTH PERIOD
Matilda,
Roald Dahl. Penguin Readers. Level 3
Matilda is a gloriously funny children’s book
written by Roald Dahl, arguably the most successful children’s writer in the
English language. In 1996, the book was made into a highly successful film
starring Danny DeVito (also the director), Mara Wilson and Rhea Perlman.
Matilda is
about a very clever little girl named Matilda. She can speak perfectly at the
age of one and a half, and by the age of four, she can read complicated adult
books. However, Matilda has one problem – her parents are nasty! Her father is
a dishonest car dealer, and neither he nor his wife takes an interest in their
daughter. In fact, all they want to do is watch TV. Matilda decides to teach
her nasty parents a lesson. She glues her father’s hat to his head, and then
tricks her parents into believing that there is a ghost in the sitting room.
When Matilda
is five years old, her parents send her to the local village school, where she
finds a friend in her kind– but extremely poor – class teacher, Miss Honey.
Miss Honey immediately realises that Matilda is a genius and tries to help her.
However, it is difficult for her because the headmistress, Miss Trunchbull, is
a terrible bully and doesn’t like Matilda. Everyone is terrified of Miss Trunchbull
– that is, everyone except Matilda! One day, Matilda realises that she has some
very special powers, and she uses these powers to defeat Miss Trunchbull and
help Miss Honey.
Read more about Roald Dahl.
My
Fair Lady, Alan Jay Lerner. Penguin Readers. Level 3
My Fair Lady tells the story
of Eliza Doolittle, who is a poor girl selling flowers on London streets until
she meets Henry Higgins, a professor of linguistics.
Chapter 1:
Higgins hears Eliza shouting
in her harsh ‘Cockney’ accent in Covent Garden. He says to his new acquaintance,
Colonel Pickering, that after six months of lessons with him, he could teach
Eliza to speak with such a pure upper-class accent that no one would be able to
tell where she came from.
Chapter 2:
Eliza’s father, Alfred
Doolittle was thrown out of the pub as he hasn’t got enough money to pay for
his drinks. Eliza gives him some money.
Chapter 3:
Eliza finds her way to the
professor’s house and offers him money to give her lessons. Pickering is intrigued
and offers to pay for the cost if Higgins can really back up his claim. Higgins
is interested in the experiment, and agrees. An intensive makeover of Eliza’s speech,
manners, and dress begins in preparation for her appearance at the Embassy
Ball.
Chapter 4:
Eliza’s father comes to
Higgins to extract some money from him. Higgins is impressed by the way he speaks.
Meanwhile, Eliza goes through many forms of speech training. Just as things
seem hopeless, Higgins softens his harsh attitude and she suddenly ‘gets it’.
Chapter 5:
Higgins takes her on her first
public appearance to Ascot Racecourse. She makes a good
impression, but shocks
everyone by her Cockney accent and slang when she gets excited. She captures
the heart of a young man named Freddy Eynsford-Hill.
Chapter 6:
Finally, Higgins takes Eliza
out to the Embassy Ball, where she stuns everyone. After the ball, Higgins is
so excited about his triumph and his pleasure that the experiment is now over.
Eliza feels used and abandoned.
Chapter 7:
She walks out on Higgins and
goes back to Covent Garden, but nobody recognises her now. She sees her father
there and finds out that he’s getting married.
Chapter 8:
After Eliza is gone, Higgins
soon realises that he has ‘grown accustomed to her face’. Higgins finds Eliza at
his mother’s house, and he attempts to talk her into coming back to him. Eliza
rejects him and leave.
Chapter 9:
Higgins makes his way home, missing Eliza very
much. He plays his recordings to listen to Eliza’s voice. To Higgins’s great
delight, Eliza returns to him.
The Nº1
Ladies’ Detective Agency, Alexander McCall Smith. Penguin
Readers. Level 3
The No.1 Ladies’ Detective
Agency is the first in a series of books by Alexander McCall Smith about Mma
(Mrs) Precious Ramotswe. This large African lady has an instinctive talent for
solving mysteries, so she decides to set up the first (and
only) ladies’ detective agency
in Botswana. The book follows the story of the agency in its early days, the
mysteries that Mma Ramotswe is hired to solve and the growing friendship between
the heroine and the charming Mr JLB Matekoni.
Most of the mysteries that Mma
Ramotswe solves are not serious crimes. For example, a rich Indian gentleman
asks her to spy on his daughter because he thinks she has a boyfriend. And a
puzzled woman asks her to discover the true identity of the old man who calls
himself her ‘Daddy’. Mma Ramotswe also returns a stolen car to its owner,
unravels an insurance scam and discovers some cheating doctors. Each of the stories
is very charming, and the perpetrators of the crimes are often shown to be
normal human beings with strengths as well as flaws in their characters.
There is also a very serious
crime which Mma Ramotswe is asked to solve: a young boy goes missing but the
police do not want to get involved. Then Mma Ramotswe’s good friend, Mr JLB
Matekoni, finds a witchdoctor’s bag with a human bone in it. It seems that the
boy has been kidnapped and murdered – and Mma Ramotswe and Mr JLB Matekoni
begin the search for the boy’s killers. They become involved with dangerous men
and threatened with the dreadful power of witchcraft. The book ends
dramatically with Mma Ramotswe rescuing the boy from slavery and reuniting him
with his family.Mma Ramotswe has a special friendship with Mr JLB Matekoni. He
is quite similar to her father, who she loved more than anyone. But her father
is dead now and Mma Ramotswe has lost much of her trust in men since she was abandoned
by her abusive husband when she was younger.
In the middle of the book, Mr
JLB Matekoni proposes to Mma Ramotswe but she refuses. The book follows their
developing friendship from this point until the end of the book, when Mma Ramotswe finally agrees to marry Mr JLB Matekoni
Food for
Thought, Pauline Francis. Penguin Readers. Level 3
Joe is working on his uncle’s
farm for the summer holidays. Then someone starts ruining the crops on the neighbouring
farm because they are GM (genetically modified). Joe has a lot to think about –
a lot of ‘food for thought’. Who is behind the destruction and why? Are GM crop
trials safe or not? Who is right – the government and its scientists, or the
protesters who trash these crops? Only a week later, during a storm, Joe has to
decide. Can Kate, the daughter of a GM farmer, still be Joe’s friend? And will
Anna, one of the protesters, still like him if he doesn’t help her?
Chapter 1:
One summer, Joe reluctantly
agrees to work on his uncle’s organic farm in Cornwall. He starts work. His
aunt and uncle are worried about the genetically modified (GM) crops being
grown by the neighbouring farmers, the Ladocks.
Chapter 2:
Much to the annoyance of his
aunt and uncle (and a girl called Anna, who is working on their farm for the
summer), Joe makes friends and goes surfing with Kate, the Ladocks’ daughter.
He defends Kate when Anna criticizes her, but is secretly attracted to Anna.
Chapter 3:
After an encounter with a
group of protesters dressed as vegetables and an afternoon’s surfing with Kate,
Joe is taken by Anna into the neighbouring farm, where she explains the dangers
of GM crops. They meet Kate, who admits that she was one of the protesters
dressed as vegetables. Anna, however, is still unfriendly to her and refuses to
go surfing with them.
Chapter 4:
That night, Kate and Joe see
Anna with a group of people looking at a map near a bridge. The next day, Anna
denies being near the bridge, and Joe begins to think he cannot trust her. When
she invites Joe to help her trash the neighbouring field of GM crops, he
refuses but promises not to tell anyone about her plans.
Chapter 5:
Anna and her friends destroy the crops but are seen
by Mrs Ladock, who calls the police. Kate and her parents are furious with Joe
for not warning them about Anna’s plans. Joe visits the Ladocks a few days
later to apologise but also to explain why he couldn’t tell them. He had made a
promise to a friend, and that was important to him. Eventually, Kate says she
forgives him, and Joe realizes that he can trust her more than he can
Anna.
Rabbit Proof
Fence, Doris Pilkington Garimara. Oxford Bookworms. Level 3
Fourteen-year-old Molly and her cousins Daisy and
Gracie were mixed-race Aborigines. In 1931 they were taken away from their
families and sent to a camp to be trained as good 'white' Australians. They
were told to forget their mothers, their language, their home. But Molly would
not forget. She and her cousins escaped and walked back to Jigalong, 1600
kilometres away, following the rabbit-proof fence north as part of their guide
across the desert. This is the true stoy of that walk, told by Molly's
daughter, Doris. It is also a prize-winning film.
Friday, 27 September 2013
READERS NB1
1st FOUR-MONTH PERIOD
Hal works
at the zoo every day and his life isn't exciting – until he meets Tim. Tim is a
movie star. He has a difficult life, and he is unhappy – until he meets Hal.
But when they meet, and agree to change places, interesting things start to
happen. And, by changing places, the two men learn what is truly important in
their lives.
The
White Stones, Lester Vaughan. Thriller
and Adventure. Oxford Bookworms. Starter
'The people on this island don't like archaeologists,' the woman on the
ferry says. You only want to study the 4,500 year-old Irish megalithic
stones but very soon strange things begin to happen to you. Can you
solve the mystery in time?
Choose one:
A small girl makes her living selling matches on the streets of New
York. It's winter, and the hustling crowds at best ignore her, and some
are outright rude. She takes shelter and, to try to stave off the cold a
bit, lights a match. It gets blown out; this happens again, then on the
third try, she falls into a dream. In this dream, cherubs attend her,
she gets a new doll, then a new dress. The cherubs put her on a throne.
Then a storm comes, and she goes toward a candle. That candle goes out,
and we see that back in the real world, so did her match and her life.
An angel comes along and takes her soul.
Written by
Jon Reeves
Changing
Places, Alan Hines. Human Interest. Oxford Dominoes. Starter
Hal works
at the zoo every day and his life isn't exciting – until he meets Tim. Tim is a
movie star. He has a difficult life, and he is unhappy – until he meets Hal.
But when they meet, and agree to change places, interesting things start to
happen. And, by changing places, the two men learn what is truly important in
their lives.
Mystery in
London, Helen Brooke. Crime and Mystery. Oxford Bookworms.
Starter
Six women are dead because of the Whitechapel Killer. Now another woman
lies in a London street and there is blood everywhere. She is very ill.
You ...
'The people on this island don't like archaeologists,' the woman on the
ferry says. You only want to study the 4,500 year-old Irish megalithic
stones but very soon strange things begin to happen to you. Can you
solve the mystery in time?Saturday, 2 February 2013
Will eBooks be the death of Traditional Books?
The stats are in and the fight is on. Overall book sales have dropped in 2008 and 2009, according to the American Association of Publishers (AAP). While adult hardcover books actually increased by over 6% in 2009, eBook sales, which account for 4% of all book sales, have increased a whopping 176%.
Are these figures telling the tale of the tape as the publishing industry struggles to regain their status as a recession proof industry? Are eBooks on their way to eliminating traditional books altogether? Or, is there another story under the front cover that is yet to be told?
Most of us love to read and most of us have our preferences for the platform we read from. What corner will you be in as the squaring off heats up? Will you be a traditionalist and stand behind the old guard, or will you sing the praises of the contender?
Are these figures telling the tale of the tape as the publishing industry struggles to regain their status as a recession proof industry? Are eBooks on their way to eliminating traditional books altogether? Or, is there another story under the front cover that is yet to be told?
Most of us love to read and most of us have our preferences for the platform we read from. What corner will you be in as the squaring off heats up? Will you be a traditionalist and stand behind the old guard, or will you sing the praises of the contender?
Wednesday, 30 January 2013
Time to read
Here you are some suggestions to start reading for fun!
THE UNLIKELY PILGRIMAGE OF HAROLD FRY, by Rachel Joyce. 368 pages [FICTION]
When Harold Fry nips out one morning to post a letter, leaving his wife hoovering upstairs, he has no idea that he is about to walk from one end of the country to the other. He has no hiking boots or map, let alone a compass, waterproof or mobile phone. All he knows is that he must keep walking. To save someone else’s life.
OTHER OPTIONS.-
JULIET NAKED, by Nick Hornby [HUMOUR]
Annie’s put fifteen years into safe, slightly obsessive Duncan, and now she’s like her money back, please. It’s time to move on. But she lives in Gooleness, the north’s answer to a question nobody asked. Is she really going to find real, proper, fell-it-deep-down-in-your-boots love on a damp and windy seafront? Or perhaps she should follow her heart and pursue Tucker, the reclusive American rock star, who keeps emailing her his smart advice.
But between Annie and her second chance lie a few obstacles. There’s Malcolm, the world’s most judgemental therapist, and Barnesy, the north’s most extrovert dancer. There’s what men and women will do and won’t do for love. And, of course, there’s Tucker. . .
SWEET TOOTH, by Ian McEwan. 320 pages [SPIES/ROMANCE]
Cambridge student Serena Frome’s beauty and intelligence make her the ideal recruit for MI5. The year is 1972. The Cold War is far from over. England’s legendary intelligence agency is determined to manipulate the cultural conversation by funding writers whose politics align with those of the government. The operation is code named “Sweet Tooth.”
Serena, a compulsive reader of novels, is the perfect candidate to infiltrate the literary circle of a promising young writer named Tom Haley. At first, she loves his stories. Then she begins to love the man. How long can she conceal her undercover life? To answer that question, Serena must abandon the first rule of espionage: trust no one.
THE UNCOMMON READER, by Allan Bennet. 128 pages. [HUMOUR]
The Uncommon Reader is none other than HM the Queen who becomes obsessed with books after a chance encounter with a mobile library. The story follows the consequences of this obsession for the Queen, her household and advisers, and her constitutional position.The consequence is, of course, surprising, mildly shocking and very funny.
THE GUERNSEY LITERARY AND POTATO PEEL PIE SOCIETY, by Mary Anne Shaffer and Annie Barrows. 256 pages [HISTORICAL FICTION]
The novel is set in 1946 and is in the form of letters, mainly to and from the central character, Juliet Ashton, a successful writer who becomes, wholly coincidentally, involved with a group of people on Guernsey who lived through the wartime German Occupation. The book has something to say about all kinds of things. Among them are friendship, suffering, forgiveness, goodness and wickedness, the resilience of humanity in desperate circumstances, how reading may influence us and the history of the Channel Islanders during the war.
EAT, PRAY, LOVE, by Elizabeth Gilbert. 384 pages. [CHICK-LIT]
A married woman realizes how unhappy her marriage really is, and that her life needs to go in a different direction. After a painful divorce, she takes off on a round-the-world journey to “find herself”.
YOUTUBE BOOK REVIEW
ME BEFORE YOU, by Jojo Moyes. 528 pages. [DRAMA/ROMANCE]
Me Before You is a beautiful book. It is hugely funny and incredibly sad. It is the kind of book which stays with you, which makes you feel like you can do anything and be anyone – and you should. You should live your life to the fullest. Just read the book, you’ll understand.
YOUTUBE BOOK REVIEW
ONE DAY, by David Nicholls. 448 pages. [CHICK-LIT]
15th July 1988. Emma and Dexter meet for the first time on the night of their graduation. Tomorrow they must go their separate ways. So where will they be on this one day next year? And the year after that? And every year that follows?
Twenty years, two people, ONE DAY.
Twenty years, two people, ONE DAY.
THE THIRTEENTH TALE, by Diane Setterfield. 480 pages. [MYSTERY]
The Thirteenth Tale is a gothic suspense novel published in 2006.Vida Winter, a famous novelist in England, has never been forthcoming when it comes to her past. Her entire life is a secret, and for fifty years reporters and biographers have attempted to discover the truth. With her health quickly fading, Ms. Winter enlists a bookish amateur biographer named Margaret Lea to bear witness to the tragic story of the Angelfield family, their eccentric beginnings as well as their demise. Margaret, who has family secrets of her own, must unravel the mysteries of the past in order to reconcile not only Miss Winter with her ghosts, but also Margaret with her own.
THE LITTLE STRANGER, by Sarah Waters. 512 pages. [GHOST STORY]
The Little Stranger is a 2009 gothic novel written by Sarah Waters. It is a ghost story set in a dilapidated mansion in Warwickshire, England in the 1940s., Waters’ fifth novel features a male narrator, a country doctor who makes friends with a family with faded fortunes left simply with a very old estate that is crumbling around them. The stress of reconciling the state of their finances with the familial responsibility of keeping the estate coincides with perplexing events that drives one to be committed to a mental institution, and kills two more.
THE BOOK THIEF, by Markus Zusak. 560 pages. [HISTORICAL FICTION]
The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak was the best-selling debut literary novel of the year 2007, selling over 400,000 copies.
Nine-year-old Liesel lives with her foster family on Himmel Street during the dark days of the Third Reich. Her Communist parents have been transported to a concentration camp, and during the funeral for her brother, she manages to steal a macabre book: it is, in fact, a gravediggers’ instruction manual. This is the first of many books which will pass through her hands as the carnage of the Second World War begins to hungrily claim lives. Both Liesel and her fellow inhabitants of Himmel Street will find themselves changed by both words on the printed page and the horrendous events happening around them.
DEATH COMES TO PEMBERLEY, by P. D. James. 352 pages. [MYSTERY]
The year is 1803, and Darcy and Elizabeth have been married for six years. There are now two handsome and healthy sons in the nursery, Elizabeth’s beloved sister Jane and her husband Bingley live nearby and the orderly world of Pemberley seems unassailable. But all this is threatened when, on the eve of the annual autumn ball, as the guests are preparing to retire for the night a chaise appears, rocking down the path from Pemberley’s wild woodland. As it pulls up, Lydia Wickham – Elizabeth’s younger, unreliable sister – stumbles out screaming that her husband has been murdered.
Inspired by a lifelong passion for the work of Jane Austen, P. D. James masterfully recreates the world of Pride and Prejudice, and combines it with the excitement and suspense of a brilliantly-crafted crime story. Death Comes to Pemberley is a distinguished work of fiction, from one of the best-loved, most- read writers of our time.
THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL, by Deborah Moggach.304 pages. [HUMOUR]
Enticed by advertisements for a newly restored palatial hotel and filled with visions of a life of leisure, good weather and mango juice in their gin, a group of very different people leave England to begin a new life in India. On arrival they are dismayed to find the palace is a shell of its former self, the staff more than a little eccentric, and the days of the Raj long gone. But, as they soon discover, life and love can begin again, even in the most unexpected circumstances.
Pick your choice and enjoy your reading! Remember good sites to buy original books arewww.thebookdepository.com with good prices and free delivery to your door, orwww.amazon.co.uk where you can also find second-hand books although you’ll have to add up VAT and posting charges. You also have the Spanish version www.amazon.es
This is a totally safe way of shopping, I use it all the time, you have a choice between paperback and hardback hence the difference in price. It depends on your budget and preferences. However remember they will add VAT and posting so it is worth ordering with other classmates to share the post cost.
Source: EOI Elx
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