2 . On a rainy afternoon, maybe one of the following books will keep you company leisurely, allowing you to spend your time alone as well as stepping into a different world.

Don’t Shed Your Tears for Anyone Who Lives on These Streets, by Patricio Pron

In April 1945, Italy, a writer disappeared at a conference and was found dead at another place. Thirty years later, a young man interviewed survivors from the conference, trying to uncover the truth about what happened and its consequences. This novel, by a well-known Argentine writer, explores art, crime and politics.

When Breath Becomes Air, by Paul Kalanithi

At thirty-six, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed (诊断) with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient. This autobiography finds hope and beauty in the face of death as Kalanithi attempts to answer the question “What makes a life worth living?”.

To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee

Set in a small Alabama town in the 1930s, the story focuses on honest, highly respected lawyer Atticus Finch who puts his career on the line when he agrees to represent Tom Robinson, a black man accused of committing a crime.

Nobody Will Tell You This But Me: A true (as told to me) story by Bess Kalb

Bess Kalb saved every voicemail from her grandmother Bobby Bell who died at ninety. In this book, Bobby is speaking to Bess once more, in a voice as loving as it ever was in life and brings us several generations of brave women. They include Bobby’s mother, who traveled alone from Belarus to America to survive, and Bess’s mother, who always fought against convention.

Writing in the late 1800s, Jules Verne was remarkably successful in his 10 guesses about future technologies of air conditioning, automobiles, the Internet, television, and underwater, air, and space travel. Unbelievably, of all places from which to choose, Jules Verne guessed Tampa, Florida, USA as the launching site of the first project to the Moon, which was only 200 kilometers away from the actual 1969 location at Cape Canaveral, Florida.

One of the best-known science fiction books is Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. Published in 1949, it was not meant as a prediction, but as a warning: Orwell was describing what he saw as the outcome of the ideas, trends, and emerging technologies of his time. Many invented terms from this novel have become common in everyday use, such as “big brother” and “doublethink”. Even the author’s name has been made into an adjective—Orwellian—and has become a warning descriptor for situations where privacy is lost and the individual has no power and is completely controlled by the government. Nineteen Eighty-Four was translated into sixty-five languages within five years of its publication, setting a record that still stands.

What helps bring science fiction into being is usually a new discovery or innovation. The author creates an analysis of the potential influence and consequences and then wraps it in a pleasant story. For example, the beginning of space exploration was followed a few years later by the Star Trek television program and movie series. The science fiction author’s self-determined role is search the world of future possibilities upon the road which we are traveling.