1 . Ernest Hemingway,like all writers,means different things to different people.To some,he represents a hunting,drinking,smoking,and aggressive male.To my high school mind,he was just some old white guy going on about a fisherman desperate to catch a large sea fish—though Ms.Frederieks,my English teacher,had forced us to read The Old Man and the Sea,I didn't come to appreciate it,nor any of Hemingway's books,until much later.But in my early 20s,someone mailed me a dusty copy of Hemingway's first novel,The Sun Also Rises.I'd never read anything quite like it—and haven't since.
Today marks the 90th anniversary of the publication of that book,A masterpiece of the form,The Sun Also Rises is a rare achievement in its power.Its brief yet evocative(引起共鸣的)sentences made a strong impression as I was beginning to develop my own love of words;“Don't you ever get the feeling that all your life is going by and you're not taking advantage of it?”one character asks narrator Jake,an American newspaper reporter.“Do you realize you've lived nearly half the time you have to live already?”
None of Hemingway's other works,though some were good and even great,quite expressed the idea of desire and longing that his first novel does.But there's also an obvious sadness that affects the entire novel,which,in truth,is what attracted me more than anything.How could these depressed and often insufferable characters be drawn so beautifully?And how on earth could such simple,undecorated writing carry this kind of emotional weight?Nathaniel Hawthorne says it best:"Easy reading is extremely hard writing."
But for me,it's much more than that.When I read?The Sun Also Rises-and I go back to it every few yeas-I'm instantly transported to Pamplona,where Hemingway's characters go to watch the bullfights.I visited Pamplona as a kid with my family,and I too watched the bullfights with my father—who randomly sent me this wonderful book.
1. What did the author think of Hemingway when he way in high school?| A．A puzzle | B．A specialist. | C．A legend. | D．A passer-by. |
| A．It is a best seller. | B．It was published a century ago. |
| C．Its simple words are appealing. | D．It's Hemingway's most popular novel. |
| A．He is crazy about travelling. | B．He was greatly affected by the book |
| C．He attached importance to reading. | D．He enjoyed looking back on old days. |
| A．Review. | B．News. | C．Anecdote. | D．History. |
2 . Science fiction is probably the only type in which anything can happen. From cities in space to robots taking over the earth, the future is never a dull place in sci-fi novels or movies. However, the task of this popular type is not only to predict the future, but also to reflect real life.
Just take a look at The Stone Sky, written by US author N. K. Jemisin, which won the Nebula Award for Best Novel of 2017. One of the reasons why the book was recognized was that it matches up with reality and shows modern social mentality. The Stone Sky tells a story happening on a broken earth, which often suffers natural disasters. In the novel, the earth “is not simply damaged, it is broken: its current condition was actively inflicted (强加) upon through the foolishness of humankind”, sci-fi blog Skulls in the Stars noted.
Faced with the earth’s constant changes, the characters in the book react in many different ways. Essun and her daughter Nassun both try to save the planet. Essun wants to repair the broken world, but Nassun desires to wreck it and create a new one. This difference casts light on the cultural anxieties in the real world, in which rebellious (叛逆的) young people want to break rules and traditions, while the elders try to keep them, the New York Times commented.
Generational idea aside, the book also includes real-life race issues and even adds some sarcasm (讽刺) to them. In the story, the dark-skinned people from the hot regions of the earth are regarded as the advanced race, while the paler people from the Antarctic are viewed as inferior (较差的). Yet the unconditional love between Essun and Nassun brings warmth to readers’ hearts. As Jemisin notes at the end of The Stone Sky, “Where there is pain in this book, it is real pain; where there is anger, it is real anger; where there is love, it is real love.”
1. Why is science fiction special according to the first paragraph?| A．It reflects our real life. |
| B．It excites people easily. |
| C．Anything can happen in it. |
| D．People often suffer a lot in it. |
| A．abandon | B．ruin | C．change | D．improve |
| A．The younger wants to build a completely new world. |
| B．Most of them would like to get along well with nature. |
| C．The older waits hopefully for the earth to improve itself. |
| D．Few of them think it possible to save the earth from its fate. |
| A．Its prediction of the future world. |
| B．Its description of unconditional love. |
| C．Its reflection of reality and social problems. |
| D．Its explanation of the foolishness of humankind. |
3 . British writer Jonathan Swiff’s novel “Gulliver’s Travels” tells the navigation doctor Gullivers several bizarre experiences.
In the beginning of the novel, the tone of the whole book is laid by the strange idea. Gulliver arrived at the island, “Lilliput”, woke up and found himself tied up by more than 100 people. This passage vividly describes the manners and behaviors of the young people who first entered Gullivers vision, especially their behavior of constantly shooting arrows at Gulliver, which laid the foreshadowing for the future development of the plot.
In Brobdingnag, “Brading Neiger”, he became the icing’s peg.
In the flying island “Peeler him”, he saw a stupid, conceited (自负的) king and nobles; ridiculous scientists...
In the witch of the Isle of Man, “Engler Oji”, he saw all sorts of famous people and learned a number of historical events of the “truth”.
In the “Lagenaige”, lie saw a “Sitelubu Kruger”. He changed the outlook of life and values after learning that they will never die but have lost the original meaning of existence.
In the “Hui-yin” which is a good, honest, intelligent, elegant horse-ruled country, he saw the weaknesses of human nature.
The writer once declared, “I would like to describe the ordinary facts with plain (简单的) writing style, because I write this book mainly to report to you, not for your entertainment.” Although Gulliver travels around the world, sees different scenarios and encounters (遇到) different circumstances, through the whole novel’s layout and consistent style, Gulliver’s every sea antecedent (前情) and consequence has a detailed explanation. According to the time and space sequence of description, the complicated plots are made plain and vivid.
1. The first scene of the noval is set in .| A．a strange countryside | B．a flying island |
| C．Gulliver’s kingdom | D．a special island “Lilliput” |
| A．vague | B．simple | C．common | D．humorous |
| A．A book review. | B．A personal anecdote. |
| C．A book guide. | D．A travel journal. |
4 . Harper Lee was an American novelist widely known for To Kill a Mockingbird, published in 1960, which won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize and has become a classic of modern American literature. The 1962 film adaptation starring Gregory Peck won three Academy Awards.
For decades, the book was Lee’s only major work of published fiction, but it was hugely influential for generations of US readers. It has sold more than 10 million copies, and is one of the most widely taught novels in the US schools. In 2007 she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her contributions to literature.
Lee wanted to live a simple life and was never comfortable with the attention the novel won her, and she practically disappeared from public life after it appeared. The world, however, continued waiting for a new novel from her, and on occasion she suggested that she had a story in progress.
In 2015, a book did come out. Go Set a Watchman was more of a first draft, featuring Scout, the young girl who was the main character of To Kill a Mockingbird. Go Set a Watchman tells a story of Scout as an adult. Accusations arose that the 89-year-old Lee was not able to agree to the manuscript’s release，and that various parties had signed on her behalf.
Though Lee moved to New York in 1949, she spent many years guarding her privacy (隐私) in Monroeville, which served as the clear inspiration for the setting in To Kill a Mockingbird.
In 2007, Lee suffered a stroke (中风), but recovered and later settled in Monroeville permanently to care for her sister, Alice, who died in 2014. She was said to eat breakfast every morning at the same fast-food spot, and was friendly with her neighbors. The countless Americans knew her only through her works，and they will undoubtedly miss her.
1. What can be learned about Harper Lee from the first two paragraphs?| A．She was regarded the greatest writer in America. |
| B．She made great contributions to American literature. |
| C．She once starred in a film adapted from her own novel. |
| D．She got her novels well accepted in most American schools. |
| A．She tried to get out of accusations. |
| B．She wanted to write another novel. |
| C．She intended to avoid being bothered. |
| D．She wasn’t comfortable with her novel’s influence. |
| A．It tells her own life story. |
| B．It is adapted into a famous film. |
| C．It won her lots of honors and awards. |
| D．It continues the story of her earlier one. |
| A．She died of a stroke in 2014. |
| B．She will be remembered forever. |
| C．She cared much for her neighbors. |
| D．She led a lonely life in her later life. |
5 . The Costa Book Awards consistently pick winners that are both of the moment and subsequently endure. It's our pleasure to confirm this year’s Category Winners.
First Novel Award Winner
Book: Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine
Author: Gail Honeyman
Eleanor is 31 years old; work finishes on a Friday and begins again on a Monday. Between, her only company will be two bottles of vodka and her own solitary, unique wit (机智). It is contentment, of a kind, but an unexpected shared experience suddenly opens the door to possibility. Challenging reader expectations with a living, breathing character, Gail Honeyman’s debut (初次登台、开张)is a funny and moving diamond.
Biography Award Winner
Book: In the Days of Rain
Author: Rebecca Stott
The Exclusive Brethren were a closed community who believed the world is ruled by Satan. Into this is born Rebecca. Her father had been an influential Brethren Minister. As her father lay dying, he begged her to help him write the memoir. He wanted to tell the story of their family who for generations had all been members of a fundamentalist Christian sect.
Poetry Award Winner
Book: Inside the Wave
Author: Helen Dunmore
To be alive is to be inside the wave, always travelling until it breaks and is gone. These poems are concerned with the borderline between the living and the dead — the underworld and the human living world – and the acutely intense being of both.
Children's Award Winner
Book: The Explorer
Author: Katherine Rundell, Hannah Horn
Four children survive their aircraft plunging into the Amazon jungle, but for Fred and his friends it’s only the beginning of a cruel battle for survival. Brimming with adventure and a real command of character and incident, Rundell has few peers in superb children's fiction.
1. What kind of life does Eleanor lead?| A．boring and lonely. | B．funny and touching. |
| C．exciting and complex. | D．ordinary and happy. |
| A．To introduce beliefs of the Exclusive Brethren. |
| B．To help her father fulfill his last wish. |
| C．To share the life of fundamentalist Christians. |
| D．To pass on her family traditions. |
| A．Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine | B．In the Days of Rain |
| C．Inside the Wave | D．The Explorer |
Though he has only two published works, Lu Yao (1949 — 1992) is one of the most celebrated Chinese
His stories focus
Lu’s
Nowadays, young people
7 . If you've fallen in love with stories about prince and princess, l've got you covered with the books below, which are brand new in 2019.
A Curse So Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer
This Beauty and the Beast retelling follows PrinceRhen, cursed into a beast by a powerful woman,and Harper, a teenage girl who might be able to save him. But powerful forces are standing against them, and it will take more than a broken curse to save them from ruin.
Sherwood by Meagan Spooner
This Robin Hood retelling from the view of Maid Marian opens after Robin of Locksley's death.Maid Marian doesn't know how she'll go on, but the people of Locksley town, pressed by the Sheriff of Nottingham, need a protector. Marian never meant to tread in Robin's footsteps, but now she'll make the choice to become her own hero.
Blanca Roja by Anna-Marie MCLemore
This Snow White retells Blanca and Roja, as they meet a spell(咒语) that will pull them into a dangerous game, which will leave one of them, and trap the other in the body of a swan.
A Blade So Black by LL McKinney
This Alice in Wonderland retelling follows Alice, trained to battle monsters in the dark kingdom known as Wonderland. When Alice's teacher is poisoned, she has to find the medicine by going deeper into Wonderland where she's ever gone before.
1. Which book is similar to Beauty and the Beast?| A．Sherwood. | B．Blanca & Roja. | C．A Blade So Black. | D．A Curse So Dark and Lonely |
| A．Meagan Spoon. | B．Robin Hood. | C．Maid Marian. | D．Anna Marie McLemore |
| A．To save her teacher 's life. | B．To flght against some monsters. |
| C．To find her own handsome prince. | D．To trap a girl in the body of a swan |
8 . My favourite book is The Adventure of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain. Tom lives with his aunt Polly in a quiet street of St. Petersburg, Missouri. He’s a lively and clever young boy, and he finds himself in many exciting adventures. He runs away with his two friends, Huck Finn and Joe, to an island in the middle of the Mississippi River for several days. With Huck he goes looking for treasure, with Becky he gets lost in a cave. And finally, they find a box of gold.
My favourite scene in the book is when everyone thinks Tom is dead. He decides to go to his own funeral. He hides and watches for a time and then suddenly he appears. Everyone is astonished to see him but they’re also pleased to see him alive.
Tom is the hero of the story, but there are other important characters. Huck is an outsider and everyone is afraid of him. Becky is pretty with fair hair, Joe is Tom’s best friend. And Injun Joe is the bad man of the story.
The theme of the story is about children growing up. It describes how strangers are seen in small towns of America. Finally, it talks about freedom, social rules and how people are punished for bad behaviour.
Why do I think The Adventure of Tom Sawyer is a great book? Mark Twain wrote the story in 1876, but it’s still read and loved by people all over the world today. And although it’s only a story, Twain wrote it in the everyday English of the southern states of America in the 19th century, so it sounds very real. Today it’s thought to be one of the greatest books in American literature. Go on—read it! I know you’ll enjoy it, too.
1. Where does Tom run away with his two friends?| A．To a quiet street. | B．To a small town. |
| C．To an island. | D．To a forest. |
| A．Huck Finn. | B．Injun Joe. |
| C．Becky. | D．Polly. |
| A．They were surprised and happy. |
| B．They were surprised and sad. |
| C．They were worried and excited. |
| D．They were frightened and happy. |
| A．ask us to read the book |
| B．tell us how popular the book is today |
| C．tell us when Mark Twain wrote the story |
| D．tell us why the story sounds very real |
When we read a poem. we often imagine what the poets
By
Australian researcher Oscar Schwartz created a website
He said that on his website, he hoped people would question the difference between humans and machines一and be able to identify what it is
10 . Mark Twain has been called the inventor of the American novel. And he surely deserves additional praise: the man who popularized the clever literary attack on racism. I say clever because anti-slavery fiction had been the important part of the literature in the years before the Civil War. H. B. Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin is only the most famous example. These early stories dealt directly with slavery. With minor exceptions, Twain planted his attacks on slavery and prejudice into tales that were on the surface about something else entirely. He drew his readers into the argument by drawing them into the story.
Again and again, in the postwar years, Twain seemed forced to deal with the challenge of race. Only a few books have been kicked off the shelves as often as Huckleberry Finn, Twain’s most widely read tale. Once upon a time, people hated the book because it struck them as rude. More recently the book has been attacked because of the character Jim, the escaped slave, and many occurrences of the word nigger.
But the attacks were and are silly—and miss the point. The novel is strongly anti-slavery. Jim’s search through the slave states for the family from whom he has been forcibly parted is heroic. As J. Chadwick has pointed out, the character of Jim was a first in American fiction—a recognition that the slave had two personalities, “the voice of survival within a white slave culture and the voice of the individual: Jim, the father and the man.”
There is much more. Twain’s mystery novel Pudd’n-head Wilson stood as a challenge to the racial beliefs of even many of the liberals of his day. Written at a time when the accepted wisdom held Negroes to be inferior (低等的) to whites, especially in intelligence, Twain’s tale centered in part around two babies switched at birth. A slave gave birth to her master’s baby and, for fear that the child should be sold South, switched him for the master’s baby by his wife. The slave’s light-skinned child was taken to be white and grew up with both the attitudes and the education of the slave-holding class. The master’s wife’s baby was taken for black and grew up with the attitudes and intonations of the slave.
The point was difficult to miss: nurture (养育), not nature, was the key to social status. The features of the black man that provided the stuff of prejudice—manner of speech, for example—were, to Twain, indicative of nothing other than the conditioning that slavery forced on its victims.
1. How do Twain’s novels on slavery differ from Stowe’s?| A．Twain was more willing to deal with racism. |
| B．Twain’s attack on racism was much less open. |
| C．Twain’s themes seemed to agree with plots. |
| D．Twain was openly concerned with racism. |
| A．target readers at the bottom |
| B．anti slavery attitude |
| C．rather impolite language |
| D．frequent use of “nigger” |
| A．Jim’s search for his family was described in detail. |
| B．The slave’s voice was first heard in American novels. |
| C．Jim grew up into a man and a father in the white culture. |
| D．Twain suspected that the slaves were less intelligent. |
| A．slaves were forced to give up their babies to their masters |
| B．slaves babies could pick up slave holders way of speaking |
| C．blacks social position was shaped by how they were brought up |
| D．blacks were born with certain features of prejudice |
