Unit 2 A good read

Unit 2 A good read

Active reading(1)

Danger! Books may change your life

1 Like Lewis Carroll's Alice, who falls into a rabbit hole and discovers a mysterious wonderland, when we pick up a book we are about to enter a new world. We become observers of life from the point of view of a person older than ourselves, or through the eyes of a child. We may travel around the globe to countries or cultures we would never dream of visiting in real life. We'll have experiences which are new, sometimes disconcerting, maybe deeply attractive, possibly unpleasant or painful, but never less than liberating from the real world we come from.

2 The English poet William Cowper (1731–1800) said \its flavour\know we live in a world of variety and difference. We know that people live various different lives, spend their time in various different ways, have different jobs, believe in different things, have different opinions, different customs, and speak different languages. Normally, we don't know the extent of these

differences, yet sometimes when something unusual happens to make us notice, variety and difference appear more as a threat than an opportunity.

3 Reading books allows us to enjoy and celebrate this variety and difference in safety, and provides us with an opportunity to grow. To interact with other people's lives in the peace and quiet of our homes is a privilege which only reading fiction can afford us. We even understand, however fleetingly, that we have more in common with other readers of books in other cultures than we might do with the first person we meet when we step out of our front doors. We learn to look beyond our immediate surroundings to the horizon and a landscape far away from home.

4 If we ever question the truth of the power of reading books, we should take the trouble to go to our local library or bookshop, or even, if we're fortunate enough, to the books on our shelves at home. We should wonder at the striking vistas created by the titles of novels ranging from the classics to the most recent: The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, The Fourth Hand by John Irving, Cancer Ward by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway, Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene, The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger or Salmon Fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday. Then we should reflect on the other lives we'll meet once we begin to read.

5 Every book will have its own language and dialect, its own vocabulary and grammar. We may not always understand every word or sentence, but whether we're enchanted or whether we feel excluded, our emotions are nevertheless stimulated. Other people and other cultures are not always distant because of geography. In a book we may confront people who live in a different climate, have different religious beliefs, or come from a different ethnic group. Even our neighbours down the road may be strangers who we can only meet through books.

6 As soon as we are able to listen, books are supremely influential in the way we live. From the bedtime story read by a parent to their child all the way through to the sitting room lined with books in our adult homes, books define our lives. The English writer E. M. Forster (1879–1970) even hinted at a more mystical power which books possess over us. He wrote, \are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little further down our particular path than we have gone ourselves.\to us—it's not us who seek out the book.

7 Thomas Merton (1915–1968), the American monk, priest and writer, was once asked a series of seven questions by a journalist: Name the last three books you have read, the three books you are reading now, the books you intend to read, the books that have influenced you, and why, a book that everyone should read, and why. For the books which had influenced him, he cited poetic works of William Blake, various plays by ancient Greek thinkers and writers, and a number of religious writings. When asked why they had influenced him, he replied, \discover the real meaning of my life, and have made it possible for me to get out of the confusion and meaninglessness of an existence completely immersed in the needs and passivities fostered by a culture in which sales are everything.\

8 So how would you answer the questions?

9 In 1947, Clifton Fadiman coined the term home-run book. When a baseball player hits a home run, he hits the ball so hard and so far he's able to run round the four bases of the diamond, and score points not only for himself but for the other runners already on a base. It's the most enjoyable and satisfying event in a baseball game. Likewise, a home-run book describes not the child's first reading experience, but the first time they read a book which induces such pleasure and satisfaction that they can't put it down. For hundreds of millions of children around the world, the best known example of a home-run book will be the Harry Potter stories.

10 As adults, we're always looking for our own home-run books, not just for the first time, but time after time again. Whoever has read a novel in one sitting will always remember the pleasure and satisfaction which await us, and eagerly, insistently, sometimes even desperately seeks to reproduce the marvellous sensation again. We cannot withstand the hunger to visit another world, to meet different people, to live other lives and to reflect on ourselves.

11 Danger! Books may change your life. Such is the power of reading.

Language points

1. Variety's the very spice of life, / That gives it all its flavour … (Para 2)

Spices are made from plants and added to food to give it its particular flavour or taste. This quote from Cowper's poem means that variety gives life extra value and allows you to appreciate life in particular ways.

2. We learn to look beyond our immediate surroundings to the horizon and a landscape far away from home. (Para 3)

This means that through reading we learn to look beyond our immediate experience or familiar environment, and therefore reading presents an alternative and more extended view of life.

3. When a baseball player hits a home run, he hits the ball so hard and so far he's able to run round the four bases of the diamond, and score points not only for himself but for the other runners already on a base. (Para 9)

In the American game of baseball, the field of grass is diamond-shaped and has four bases (specific points marked around the diamond), round which players must run to score points. One team bats (ie team members take turns to hit the ball and run round the bases) and the members of the other team throw (pitch) the ball and, when it is hit, try to catch it or get it quickly to one of the four bases. If a batting player can hit the ball hard enough, he can run round all four bases before the other team can get the ball and thus score maximum points—with a home run. In the passage, a really good book is like a home run.

危险！书可能会改变你的人生

刘易斯 ? 卡罗尔书中的爱丽丝不小心掉进了兔子洞里，但她在那里发现了一个神奇的仙境。当我们打开一本书时，我们也会像爱丽丝那样走进一个全新的世界。 我们能从一个年长者的角度，或通过一个孩子的眼睛来观察生活； 我们可以周游世界，遍访现实生活中从没想过要访问的国家和文化； 我们可以体验未曾经历过的事情，这些事情也许令人困惑，也许引人入胜；可能是不愉快的，也可能是令人痛苦的，但无论如何都至少能把我们从现实世界中解放出来。

英国诗人威廉 ? 柯珀（1731–1800）说：―变化是生活的调味品，它让生活变得有滋有味。‖ 虽然他没有说在什么地方以及怎样才能找到变化，但我们知道他说得对。 我们知道我们生活在一个充满变化与差异的世界里，我们知道人们的生活各不相同，过日子的方式也不尽不同，人们做不同的工作，有不同的信仰，持不同的观点，有不同的风俗习惯，操不同的语言。 通常，我们不知道这些差异的大小，但一旦发生了不平常的事情并引起了我们的注意，这种变化或差异与其说是机会，毋宁说是威胁。

读书让我们能够安全地享受和庆贺这种变化与差异，并为我们提供成长的机会。 在家里安详平和的环境中与他人的生活互动，这是阅读小说才享有的特权。 我们甚至感觉到——哪怕只是在一瞬间——我们和异文化读者的共同点或许要多于我们和家门口随便碰到的一个人的共同点。 我们学会把目光移出我们周围的环境，投向天边，去领略一下异域风光。

如果我们怀疑读书是否能给我们力量的话，我们就应该自己去一趟当地的图书馆或书店，或者，如果我们足够幸运的话，可以读一读家里书架上的书。 我们会惊奇于古今小说的标题所创造出来的壮观景象：约翰 ? 斯坦贝克的《愤怒的葡萄》、约翰 ? 欧文的《第四只手》、亚历山大 ? 索尔仁尼琴的《癌病房》、欧内斯特 ? 海明威的《丧钟为谁而鸣》、格雷厄姆 ? 格林的《哈瓦那特派员》、奥黛丽 ? 尼芬格的《时间旅行者的妻子》、保罗 ? 托迪的《到也门钓鲑鱼》。 一旦开始阅读，我们就应该思考一下我们在书中读到的别样人生。

每一本书都有自己的语言、方言、词汇和语法。 我们不见得总能理解其中的每一个字、每一句话，但不管我们是痴迷其中，还是觉得被排斥在外，我们的情感被调动起来了。 尽管在地理上有一定的距离，但其他民族、其他文化未必就离我们那么遥远。 在书里我们可能遇见生活在不同气候、有不同信仰、来自不同民族的人。 即便是住在同一条街上的邻居，我们也可能对其一无所知，而只能通过阅读结识。 小时候，在我们刚刚能听懂别人说话的时候，书就对我们的生活方式产生了很大的影响。 从父母给孩子读的睡前故事一直到成年后家中摆满书柜的客厅，书界定了我们的人生。 英国作家E.M.福斯特（1879–1970）暗示书对我们具有另一种更加神秘的支配力。 他写道：―我认为能影响我们的书籍是那些我们已经准备要读的书，而且这些书在我们已经选定的道路上走得比我们更远一些。‖ 合适的书好像自己就会在恰当的时候找到我们，出现在我们面前，而不是我们去寻找那本书。

美国修士、牧师及作家托马斯 ? 默顿（1915–1968）曾经被记者一连串地问了7个问题：说出你最近读完的3本书；你正在读的3本书；你打算要读的书；对你有影响的书，并解释一下理由；一本你觉得每人都要读的书，并解释一下理由。 关于对他有影响的书，他列出了威廉 ? 布莱克的诗集、古希腊思想家和作家写的各种戏剧以及一些宗教作品。 当被问及这些书为何会影响他时，他回答说：―这些书——还有其他类似的书籍——帮助我找到了人生的真谛。销售就是一切的文化培育了人们无止境的需求和消极被动，生活充满了困惑和空虚，而书籍则把我从这种困惑和空虚中解脱了出来。‖ 那么，你又会如何回答这些问题呢？

1947年，克利夫顿 ? 法迪曼发明了―全垒打书籍‖这个词。 当一个棒球手打出一个全垒打时，因为击球有力、打得远，他有时间跑完整个棒球场内的四个垒，不仅自己得分，而且还能帮其他各个垒的跑垒者得分，这是棒球赛里最有趣和最开心的事情。 同样，一本―全垒打书籍‖指的不是儿童第一次读书的经历，而是指他第一次读到一本给他带来极大愉悦和满足感的书以至于让他爱不释手的经历。 对世界上数以亿计的儿童来说，―全垒打书籍‖的最典型的例子就是《哈利波特》系列故事。

作为成年人，我们总在寻找自己的―全垒打书籍‖，不仅是第一次，而是一次又一次地寻找。 所有一口气读完一本小说的人都会记得那种令人期待的愉悦和满足感，并会焦急、固执、有时甚至疯狂地寻求重复体验这种感觉。 我们想周游另一个世界、想与不同的人见面、想经历别样的人生并自我反省，我们无法遏制这样的渴求。

危险！书可能会改变你的人生。

这就是读书的力量。

百度搜索“77cn”或“免费范文网”即可找到本站免费阅读全部范文。收藏本站方便下次阅读，免费范文网，提供经典小说教育文库Unit 2 A good read在线全文阅读。