| A. stranded B. unsettling C. vast D. alternating E. titled F. breaking G. unparalleled H. unfolding I. sprung J. distress K. solidity |
Finding Comfort in War and Peace
Over the past 15 years, Yiyun Li, a Chinese-American author, has read War and Peace at least a dozen times. Her hardback copy of Leo Tolstoy's 1,200 - page saga bristles with colored notes, like some exotic lizard's spine. The novel is not just a masterclass in fiction, Ms. Li believes, but a cure for
War and Peace - originally
So large is Tolstoy's world, Ms. Li reckoned, that there could be no better companion for people
Other book clubs have
| A．A library. | B．A writer. | C．A book. |
When people sit together and enjoy the glorious moon
But should we get bogged down (陷入) by the suffering of things with which we can't change? Su Shi gives his answer, a very
To this day, people still use this poem
Epic Fails: The Wright Brothers: Nose-Diving into History By Erik Slader and Ben Thompson. Ages 6 to 12. The first book in the Epic Fails series deals with one of the most ambitious goals humans have pursued: the quests to fly. Authors Slader and Thompson focus on life-or-death scenes, such as when the Wright brothers crashed their glider over and over on the sandy coast of North Carolina; it took them two more years to get it right. |
Epic Fails: The Race to Space: Countdown to Liftoff By Erik Slader and Ben Thompson. Ages 6 to 12 Today, everyone is familiar with Neil Armstrong’s famous words as he first set foot on the moon, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” He made it look easy, but America’s journey to the moon was anything but simple. Our first attempt was a failure. Still, we didn’t give up. We tried again. And again. And each time we failed, we failed a little bit better. |
Fantastic Failures: True Stories of People Who Changed the World by Falling Down First By Luke Reynolds. Ages 6 to 12. Teacher Luke Reynolds opens each chapter with a quick, impossibly perfect version of one person’s life and then says how that person actually had to face huge challenges to accomplish goals. In this book, Reynolds writes about various common men, women and children. |
Cyrus Field’s Big dream：The Daring Effort to Lay the First Transatlantic Telegraph Cable By Mary Morton Cowan. Ages 6 to 12. In 1853，it took at least a week to relay a message between the United States and Europe because people had to be transported on ships over the Atlantic Ocean. Cyrus Field tried to reduce that transmission（传送）time to just minutes by laying a long undersea cable. In this book，Cowan describes many failures Field suffered before he achieved this major breakthrough. |
1. Who are the four books intended for?
| A．Children. | B．Teenagers. | C．Adults. | D．Old people. |
| A．It was written by a famous actor. | B．It tells stories of ordinary people. |
| C．It is about science fiction stories. | D．It is a picture book by a teacher. |
| A．All roads lead to Rome. | B．Failure is the mother of success. |
| C．An early bird catches worms | D．Actions speak louder than words. |
5 . There are some of history's most inspiring and great females who can be found on the pages of these novels.
Elizabeth Bennet Called "Lizzie" or “Eliza" by her family and friends, Elizabeth Bennet is the stubborn and clever heroine in Jane Austen's 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice. She's the second eldest of five daughters in the Bennet family and, like the rest of her sisters, she is expected to marry for status and money, not for love. To remain true of herself, she would rather remain single, a concept that was unheard at the time.
Nancy Drew She first appeared in 1932 but remains one of the most iconic female characters in all of literature. Created by Edward Stratemeyer, Nancy Drew isn't simply a pretty girl. Instead, the bold, physically strong, and fiercely intelligent Nancy uses her superior intelligence — not her look --- to solve a series of mysteries.
Josephine March Jo March is the second eldest daughter in the March family and is a central focus in the novel Little Woman, published by Lousia May Alcott in 1868. Jo struggles with challenges from society's expectations of how women in the 19th century should carry themselves, making her one of literature’ s most daring female characters.
Hester Prynne Recognized by some critics as one of the most important characters in female literature, Hester Prynne is the leading character in Nathaniel Hawthorne's 1850 novel, The Scarlet Letter. Married but separated by distance from her husband, Hester has an affair with a minister and becomes pregnant.
1. Why would Elizabeth Bennet rather remain single?| A．She doesn't want to cheat herself. | B．She doesn't want to marry for love. |
| C．She was the eldest daughter of the family. | D．She is too clever. |
| A．Kind. | B．Clever. | C．Outspoken. | D．Proud. |
a. Elizabeth b. Nancy Drew c. Josephine March d. Hester Prynne
| A．dcab. | B．cdba. | C．adbc. | D．adcb. |
6 . A widow with a fish to fry
A YOUNG WOMAN WALKS INTO THE BATHROOM of her Beijing apartment. She plans to ask her husband about their coming vacation, but notices he's facedown in their bathtub. Jokingly, she asks him if he's trying to wash his hair. No answer. He's dead.
These first pages of An Yu's novel, Braised Pork, sound like a domestic thriller. The dead husband . A fancy apartment. And a wife who shows that even if she's shocked by the unexpected death, she wasn't happy with her marriage to begin with. Yu writes, “He had betrayed（背叛）and deserted her."
But then, as she waits for the ambulance, Jia Jia discovers a picture of a strange fish-man left near her bathtub. She remembers her husband describing the creature on a trip to Tibet—it had shown up in a dream. Jia Jia doesn't know it yet, but the drawing will take her miles from home, changing what she knows to be true about herself. It's this experience that changes Braised Pork into an original narrative（叙事）one that doesn't fit into any genre（体裁）.
As JiaJia picks up the pieces of her life, she wonders how much of herself she suppressed （压 抑）to please her husband. She was once an artist, but her husband discouraged her from running after her dream. Now she can explore those desires alone, though .
ANOTHER AUTHOR might have chosen to follow a young widow on a journey of finding love after loss. But 28-year-old Yu smartly decides not to. Instead, she uses Jia Jia as a way to explore the anxiety of contemporary womanhood. Jia Jia does want to find love again, which is only a small part of the story. Yu leaves room for her to begin a more material search: uncovering the meaning behind the picture beside her husband's dead body.
There are some images that make us so uncomfortable. It's impossible to look away from them. For JiaJia, it's the fish-man at first, and then more memories of the past, which interrupt her present. In Braised Pork, Yu raises questions about why we keep an eye on those moments-and how they might relate to the company we wish for.
1. What's the genre of the novel Braised Pork?| A．Mystery. | B．Narrative. |
| C．Domestic thriller. | D．None of the above. |
| A．lonely and suppressed. | B．innocent but unlucky. |
| C．humorous and independent. | D．talented and passionate. |
| A．Jia Jia and Yu both wish for company |
| B．Jia Jia would rather live in the past than in the future |
| C．Yu uses Jia Jia to explore the anxiety of contemporary womanhood |
| D．The novel is mainly about a young widow finding her true love after loss |
| A．Yu uses uncomfortable images to catch reader's attention. |
| B．The picture of a strange fish-man will take Jia Jia away from home . |
| C．Jia Jia can take up art again after her husband's unexpected death. |
| D．Jia Jia isn't satisfied with her marriage due to her husband's betrayal. |
| A．A novel. | B．A newspaper. | C．A person. |
8 . Gwendolyn Brooks was the first African American to win a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Gwendolyn Brooks wrote hundreds of poems during her lifetime. She was known around the world for using poetry to increase understanding about black culture in America.
Her poems described conditions in the black community. She also wrote poems about the struggles of black women. But her skill was more than her ability to write about struggling black people. She was an expert at the language of poetry. She combined traditional European poetry styles with the African American experience.
In her early poetry, Gwendolyn Brooks wrote about the South Side of Chicago, where many black people live. In her poems, the South Side is called Bronzeville. It was A Street in Bronzeville that gained the attention of literary experts in 1945. Critics praised her poetic skill and her powerful descriptions of the black experience during the time. The Bronzeville poems were her first published collection.
In 1950, Gwendolyn Brooks won Pulitzer Prize for her second book of poems called Annie Allen. Annie Allen is `a collection of poetry about the life of a Bronzeville girl as a daughter, a wife and mother. She experiences loneliness, loss, death and being poor. Ms. Brooks said that winning the prize changed her life.
Her next work was a novel written in 1953 called Maud Martha, which received little notice when it was first published. But now it is considered an important work by some critics. Its main ideas about the difficult life of many women are popular among female writers today.
In some of her poems, Gwendolyn Brooks described how what people see in life is affected by who they are. One example is this poem, Corners on the Curing Sky.
By the end of the 1960s, Gwendolyn Brooks’s poetry expanded from the everyday experiences of people in Bronzeville. She wrote about a wider world and dealt with important political issues.
1. What does the text mainly talk about?| A．The life of Gwendolyn Brooks. | B．The struggles of black women. |
| C．The poems of Gwendolyn Brooks. | D．The understanding about black culture. |
| A．She was good at using the language of poetry. |
| B．She mainly wrote about the struggles of black women. |
| C．Her writing skills were a little worse than her ability. |
| D．Her poems were mainly about the African experience. |
| A．using statistics | B．providing examples |
| C．comparing opinions | D．describing her experiences |
| A．the poems related to political issues | B．the difficulties Ms. Brooks would meet |
| C．the awards Gwendolyn Brooks gained | D．the struggles that the black had to face |
9 . For several days I (Jane Eyre) saw little of Mr. Rochester. In the morning he seemed much occupied with business, and in the afternoon gentlemen from the neighourhood called and sometimes stayed to dine with him. When his foot was well enough, he rode out a great deal.
During this time, all my knowledge of him was limited to occasional meetings about the house, when he would sometimes pass me coldly, and sometimes bow and smile. His changes of manner did not offend me, because I saw that I had nothing to do with the cause of them.
One evening, several days later, I was invited to talk to Mr. Rochester after dinner. He was sitting in his armchair, and looked not quite so severe, and much less gloomy. There was a smile on his lips, and his eyes were bright, probably with wine. As I was looking at him, he suddenly turned, and asked me, “Do you think I’m handsome, Miss Eyre?”
The answer somehow slipped from my tongue before I realized it: ‘No, sir.”
“Ah, you really are unusual! You are a quiet, serious little person, but you can be almost rude.”
“Sir, I’m sorry. I should have said that beauty doesn’t matter, or something like that,”
“No, you shouldn’t! I see, you criticize my appearance, and then you stab(刺) me in the back! You have honesty and feeling. There are not many girls like you. But perhaps I go too fast. Perhaps you have awful faults to counterbalance(抵消) your few good points.
I thought to myself that he might have too. He seemed to read my mind, and said quickly, “Yes, you’re right. I have plenty of faults. I went the wrong way when I was twenty-one, and have never found the right path again. I might have been very different. I might have been as good as you, and perhaps wiser. I am not a bad man, take my word for it, but I have done wrong. It wasn’t my character, but circumstances which were to blame. Why do I tell you all this? Because you’re the sort of person people tell their problems and secrets to, because you’re sympathetic and give them hope.”
It seemed he had quite a lot to talk to me. He didn’t seem to like to finish the talk quickly, as was the case for the first time.
“Don’t be afraid of me, Miss Eyre.” He continued. “You don’t relax or laugh very much, perhaps because of the effect Lowood school has had on you. But in time you will be more natural with me, and laugh, and speak freely. You’re like a bird in a cage. When you get out of the cage, you’ll fly very high. Good night.”
1. At the beginning Miss Eyre’s impressions of Mr. Rochester were all EXCEPT _______.| A．busy | B．sociable |
| C．friendly | D．changeable |
| A．Because Jane had intended to kill him with a knife. |
| B．Because Jane had intended to be more critical. |
| C．Because Jane had regretted having talked to him. |
| D．Because Jane had said something else to correct herself. |
| A．tell her all his troubles | B．tell her his life experience |
| C．change her opinion of him | D．change his circumstances |
| A．rude | B．cold |
| C．friendly | D．encouraging |
注意：1. 词数100左右；2. 可以增加适当的细节，以使行文连贯。
Dear Peter,
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Yours,
Li Hua
