1 . Science fiction, or sci-fi, with more themes related to environmental issues, overpopulation, and technological growth, has explosively (爆发地) grown in popularity since the beginning of the 21st century.
Some Chinese Sci-Fi History
The history of Chinese sci-fi is extensive, but the modern genre first took root during the 1900s. Authors such as Lu Xun promoted sci-fi’s early development in China and translated multiple Western stories like Jules Verne’s From the Earth to the Moon. Following the 1970s, China began its own golden age of science fiction. Movies, clubs, magazines, societies and communities formed around this genre and became increasingly popular among Chinese readers.
Its Entry into the West
Chinese sci-fi has become internationally recognized, mainly because of Ken Liu, who translated The Three-Body Problem, the first contemporary Chinese sci-fi novel to be translated into English.
What Makes Chinese Sci-Fi Distinctive (独特的)
The subgenre is unique for using a number of cultural and traditional objects, words, places and beliefs.
| A．Published in 2014, it proved to be a huge success. |
| B．He is a writer, translator and computer scientist. |
| C．Before the 2000s, Chinese sci-fi was lesser-known. |
| D．Chinese sci-fi also made its way to take the West by storm. |
| E．Similar to Western sci-fi, it has experienced the ups and downs. |
| F．This laid the foundation for its eventual introduction to Western readers. |
| G．This makes Chinese sci-fi a cultural and historical analysis of China. |
2 . At least 3 million people, or around 6% of the adult population in England aged over 16, say they feel isolated “often or always,” according to Government figures, with those aged between 16 to 24 especially vulnerable(易受影响的). When it comes to our emotional wellbeing, feeling lonely is a risk factor for several mental disorders including schizophrenia and major depression, and also makes us more fearful and anxious.
I remember one woman starting to cry as she read Derek Walcott’s poem Love After Love during a workshop held at my local hospital in West London.
I am not alone in believing in that poems can aid our mental health. A 2021 study published by the American Academy of Pediatrics found that a group of 44 hospitalized children who were encouraged to read and write poetry saw reductions in fear, sadness, anger, worry and fatigue, Poetry was a welcome distraction from stress and an opportunity for self-reflection, the researchers concluded.
| A．Fighting through tears, she eventually said that she felt understood. |
| B．I hope there will be more clinical studies on poetry’s therapeutic power. |
| C．Indeed, loneliness is now widely recognized as a major public health problem. |
| D．Poetry lets us connect with other people who have experienced similar feelings. |
| E．Unfortunately, an increasing number of people have no idea of emotional well-being. |
| F．Poetry had worked its magic, unlocking a feeling of inner connection to all of us there. |
| G．I am hopeful that more studies and evidence will emerge, given my own experience of how poems can help us feel less isolated. |
3 . Like a Lily Among the Thoms by Karen S. Bell is a touching and appealing novel. Bell explores the theme of a sense of belonging through the perspective of her main character, Gabrielle Bernstein. Gabrielle is an optimistic young woman, and she never takes life for granted. She enjoys working as a librarian, and she loves her community. One day, she receives a notice to force her out of her apartment because her building is being pulled down, making room for luxury apartments. She only has a few days to find a new living situation. Soon after, she receives news:her long-lost father has passed away and left her an inheritance(遗产). Throughout this journey, Gabrielle struggles internally about whether to accept or decline this sudden inheritance from the man who has caused her so much pain.
From the start, Bell establishes a sharp contrast between- Gabrielle’s inner and outer self. For example,Gabrielle-has a generally positive outlook on life internally, and she never lets negative thoughts poison her mind. However, the author shows that when people come across Gabrielle, they see an external image of someone who seems angry, frustrated, and unhappy. In essence, Gabrielle is happy on the inside, but it does not reflect on her face. Later, the author explains this dichotomy(双面) when she finally pours out her childhood to her friend. In this revealing scene, Gabrielle’s face suddenly begins to change because she finally unburdens herself of how she truly feels about her upbringing. Indeed,"the more Gabrielle starts to let go of her painful past, the more her face comes across as pleasing.
Bell expertly describes the main character’s emotions with extreme honesty, and readers will undoubtedly be pleased with the results.
1. How did Gabrielle probably feel about the news?| A．Excited. | B．Relieved. | C．Hesitant. | D．Annoyed. |
| A．Letting go is the best relief. | B．Family is the most precious. |
| C．Never take things for granted. | D．People with double natures gain twice. |
| A．Immature. | B．Average. | C．Strange. | D．Remarkable. |
| A．A realistic novel. | B．A book review. |
| C．A critical biography. | D．A diary entry. |
Lately, 16 Chinese online novels have been added to the collection of the British Library,
One of the largest research
The library usually selects works
5 . Four novels listed for readers
Bee Season by Myla Goldberg
Eliza Naumann, a nine-year-old, expects never to fit into her gifted family: her wise father, Saul, absorbed in his study of science; her brother, Aaron, the hope of his father; and her mom, Miriam, a bright lawyer. But when Eliza takes the lead in school and district spelling bee competitions, Saul takes it as a sign that she is sure to be of greatness.
The Worlds We Think We Know by Dalia Rosenfeld
Extremely funny, this collection of stories takes readers from the United States to Israel and back again to examine the mystifying (令人迷惑的) reaches of our own minds and hearts. The characters of The Worlds We Think We Know are inspired by the power of passion and confusion. After being attacked in the streets of New York, a professor must repeat the terrible experience to recover his memory—and his lost love.
Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran
With only a yellowing photo in hand, a young man named Jonathan Safran Foer sets out to find the woman who might or might not have saved his grandfather from the Nazis. Teamed up with an old man with memories of the war, a dog named Sammy and the unforgettable Alex, a young translator who speaks poor English, Jonathan is led on a wild journey over a deserted landscape and into an unexpected past.
At the End of the World, Turn Left by Zhanna Slor
This is an attractive novel from an unforgettable new voice that is literary, an interesting story about identity and how you define “home”. Masha remembers her childhood in the former USSR, but finds her life and heart in Israel. She was just a baby when her family moved, but eager to find her roots (根).
1. Why does Saul start thinking Eliza will be great?| A．She becomes his only hope in the future. |
| B．She stands out in the competitions. |
| C．She takes him as a role model. |
| D．She has decided to be a lawyer in the future. |
| A．An old man and his old dog. |
| B．A place in a photo. |
| C．A young man looking for a person. |
| D．A young translator’s experience. |
| A．Bee Season. |
| B．Everything is Illuminated. |
| C．At the End of the World, Turn Left. |
| D．The Worlds We Think We Know. |
6 . In the winter of 1664-65, a bitter cold fell on London in the days before Christmas. Above the city, an unusually bright comet (彗星) shot across the sky, exciting much prediction of a snow storm, Outside the city wall, a woman was announced dead of a disease that was spreading in that area. Her house was locked up and the phrase “Lord Have Mercy On Us” was painted on the door in red.
By the following Christmas, the virus that had killed the woman would go on to kill nearly 100,000 people living in and around London—almost a third of those who did not flee.
In The Great Plague (瘟疫), historian A.Lloyd Moote and microbiologist Dorothy C.Moote provide a deeply informed account of this plague year. Reading the book, readers are taken from the palaces of the city’s wealthiest citizens to the poor areas where the vast majority of Londoners were living, and to the surrounding countryside with those who fled. The Mootes point out that, even at the height of the plague, the city did not fall into chaos. Doctors, nurses and the church staff remained in the city to care for the sick; city officials tried their best to fight the crisis with all the legal tools; commerce continued even as businesses shut down.
To describe life and death in and around London, the authors focus on the experiences of nine individuals. Through their letters and diaries, the Mootes offer fresh descriptions of key issues in the history of the Great Plague: how different communities understood and experienced the disease; how medical, religious, and government bodies reacted; how well the social order held together; the economic and moral dilemmas people faced when debating whether to flee the city; and the nature of the material, social, and spiritual resources supporting those who remained. Based on humanity, the authors offer a masterful portrait of a city and its residents attacked by—and daringly resisting -unimaginable horror.
1. What can we learn from Paragraph 1?| A．A comet always follows a storm. | B．London was prepared for the disease. |
| C．London was under an approaching threat. | D．The woman was the beginning of the disease. |
| A．The cit remained organized. | B．The people tried a lo in vain. |
| C．The plague spared the rich areas. | D．The majority fled and thus survived. |
| A．They were famous people in history. | B．They all managed to survive the plague. |
| C．They united by thinking and acting as one. | D．They provided vivid stories of humanity in the disaster. |
| A．To record an epidemic. | B．To introduce a book. |
| C．To report a new survey. | D．To correct a misunderstanding. |
7 .
Red Sorghum | Mo Yan (Author), George Backman (Narrator), Howard Goldblatt (translator) The acclaimed novel of love and resistance during late 1930s China by Mo Yan, winner of the 2012 Nobel Prize in Literature. Spanning three generations, this novel of family and myth is told through a series of flashbacks that describe events of shocking horror set against a landscape of gemlike beauty, as the Chinese battle both Japanese invaders and each other in the turbulent (动荡的) 1930s. |
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Audible.com Release Date December 09, 2013
Publisher Audible Studios
Program Type Audiobook
Version Unabridged
Language English
Top reviews from the United States
jklm
It was interesting and vivid, but not…This is a ‘history’ of a family recalling various exploits of family members. I liked the realism but the jumping about backwards and forwards from decade to decade makes me confused.
There is a distinct lack of ideals or kindness, but it did lead me to reflect on the charm that gang leaders can have. So it was interesting and vivid, but not a page turner or a pleasant read.
K.N.R.
A New ClassicWar cannot destroy all. This family stretches three generations and the bonds are as strong as the sorghum, though perhaps suffering from storms. His style of writing is very pretty, sometimes too much and sometimes just perfect. The novel switches lawlessly back and forth. The use of third-person always enables the writing to adjust to different scenes with ease. The only bad part is the end. Mo Yan tries too hard to force a feeling of filial (孝顺的) devotion and ancestral respect on the reader. Otherwise it is an exciting, intense book with violence, horror, and shooting. An extraordinary achievement.
1. What do we know about Red Sorghum?| A．It is a non-fiction for those who lived in late 1930s China. |
| B．George Backman is one of the authors. |
| C．The novel gives us the story in order of time. |
| D．It tells the history of three generations struggling during the war-torn time. |
| A．He/She can’t understand where the novel was heading. |
| B．The book can only be listened. |
| C．The author tried hard to show blind respect to parents and ancestors. |
| D．The war that Chinese people were faces with was too harsh. |
| A．travel website | B．short video website | C．shopping website | D．news website |
8 . The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by MARK TWAIN
"The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" is a novel that can be considered autobiography as it is based on the experiences of Mark Twain. Tom Sawyer stands out for his intelligent, wild and humorous nature. He is a person who can overcome any problem, and nothing is impossible for him. He looks at the difficulties as a challenge and tries to solve them. He is powered by great optimism despite everything bad that has happened to him.
The Happy Prince by OSCAR WILDE
The Happy Prince is a tale with multiple lessons. From one side it is the critic of the society that can be cruel and heartless and on the other side, it is about the sympathy for humans' troubles. Oscar Wild tried to state in a simple way the virtues and weaknesses of a person in all of his fairy tales and criticize the society which is insensible.
The Old Man and the Sea by ERNEST HEMINGWAY
"The Old Man and the Sea" is a novel which was published in 1952 for the first time in the magazine Life. The theme is the relationship between man and nature. Even though at the beginning Santiago is represented like a man who is defeated in life and has no strength, with time we find out that he is the real hero characterized by strength and faith.
Beauty and the Beast by JEANNE-MARIE LEPRINCE DE BEAUMONT
"Beauty and the Beast" is a heartfelt story about the birth of love and the capability of love to trans-form the way you look at people you love. The moral of this fairy tale is that person' s beauty comes from a heart in love and when the beauty realizes the inner beauty of the beast and the feelings it has, the outer appearance means nothing to her anymore.
1. What do Tom Sawyer and Santiago have in common?| A．They are men of great power | B．They are fond of comforts. |
| C．They are smart and humorous. | D．They are world-famous novelists. |
| A．Faith can remove mountains. | B．Love blinds a person to imperfection |
| C．The best hearts are always the bravest | D．The inner beauty outweighs the outer beauty. |
| A．Announcement. | B．Autobiograhy. | C．Book review. | D．Diary. |
9 . I realized that I spent far too much time on the Internet last year, for obvious reasons. I suspect Fm not alone. And just like magic, Suzanne Park’s Sunny Song Will Never Be Famous came across my desk, a story about a 17-year-old Korean American influencer who ends up in a digital detox (脱瘾) camp. My first reaction was to shrink, worried about how much of my social media self I would see in this book, and how much relative therapy (疗法) I would undoubtedly require as a result. But Sunny is such an amazing heroine that I was laughing out loud by Page 10.
Sunny is literally born an influencer. Thanks to a video, “Goggle Girl” becomes Internet famous. She keeps up the persona as she grows older, procuring almost 10,000 subscribers to her YouTube channel alone. But disaster strikes when she forgets to turn off the camera one afternoon during a live stream. This will result in Sunny’s dismissal from her L. A. private school— unless her parents send her to a digital detox camp, as per the principal’s request.
The customers in the camp are Internet addicts ranging from fantasy sports and gaming players to mean girl Internet celebrities. Sunny is forced to spend a month in the cornfields of Iowa among these celebrities with no digital devices. Except the burner phone she brings secretly in because she’s in the running for an influencer competition, and she actually has a shot! But the other competitor is the meanest girl in camp, who also happens to have ten times Sunny’s following.
The book is a total joy to read. I appreciate that Park does not approach social media as the enemy in this book, and for that reason I can enthusiastically recommend it to any young folks who are particularly web-savvy (精通的).Sunny reminds readers of the power of Internet fame, and the consequences if that power isn’t used wisely.
1. How did the author feel when first seeing the book?| A．She felt amazed at its cover. |
| B．She felt concerned about its contents. |
| C．She felt confident of its style. |
| D．She felt upset about its plot. |
| A．Postponing. | B．Appreciating. | C．Obtaining. | D．Introducing. |
| A．People there are physically abused. |
| B．Life there without digital products. |
| C．It holds many competitions monthly. |
| D．It is specially designed for Internet celebrities. |
| A．To review a book. |
| B．To introduce a great camp. |
| C．To record an unforgettable experience. |
| D．To stress the advantage of social media. |
Science fiction pioneer and writer Wu Yan won this year’s National Outstanding Children’s Literature Award for his
His fellow science fiction writer Liu Cixin, author of The Three Body Problem, believes China Orbit is too complicated to be classed under a single category. He speaks highly of China Orbit as
