“You can either travel or read, but either your body or soul must be on the way.” The popular saying has inspired many people to read or go sightseeing. Traveling, just like reading, is a refreshing journey, and a temporary retreat from the busy world. Here are four books we recommend that you take on your trip.

This book is about a direct, stylish and engrossing story of a marvelous life well-lived. Markham described her childhood in Kenya and her experiences as a bush pilot in the 1930s—evoking the landscape, people, and wildlife in rich detail.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau once said, “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.” The book describes a young artist’s romantic but miserable life, about how he reads, dreams and has a relationship. The book invites you to deeply reflect on your current life.

Provence, well-known for its lavender (薫衣草), is not only a tourist attraction, but more a symbol of a lifestyle. The book doesn’t teach you how to deal with the hardships in life, but to avoid them happily. With a cup of wine and a rocking chair, time flows slowly here. The author and his wife are living a reclusive life here. When you make a trip following the author’s footsteps, you may encounter him in Provence.

The book, featuring a peak masterpiece of the Nobel Prize winner in Literature, Orhan Pamuk, has been translated into more than 50 languages and published around the world. It tells a story of a young man, who has been away from home for 12 years, coming back to his hometown in Istanbul. What embraces him is not only love, but a series of murder cases as well. The book inspires people to have a deeper thinking on life.

We are all born social and company to live happy and fruitful life. Healthy and supportive mutual relationships help reduce stress and promote the physical, mental and emotional well-being by building skills like time management, assertiveness(自信), sociability and empathy.

Making friends has made me feel secure. However, I have to be cautious to pick up friends sharing similar tastes and values. In addition, having added to one’s circle of friends helps one feel supported.

It is true that finding time to cultivate relationships is all about effective time management. My busy uncle finds time to catch up with family and friends during his tea and lunch breaks. Similarly my friend Somya uses her time on her way back home from work in her chauffeur-driven car to catch up with people. The modern inventions of SMS and e-mail help send wishes for birthdays and anniversaries to show your love and care.

Assertiveness is as much applicable to relationships. My friend Mohana emphasizes that neither being a passive observer nor being aggressive helps relationships. It is assertiveness in our relationships that opens the lines of effective communication. It emphasizes helping friends in need and also strengthens mutually supportive relationships.

It is also true that assertiveness by intuition promotes discretion of friends and helps Lalitha distinguish positive people from drains of energy. She can easily figure this out by the flow of the conversation, the way each feels understood, accepted and supported, and by how I feel, happy, bored or energized in the relationship. It also helps to know whether all benefit from each other’s positive aspects.

Handling stress in life is all about cultivating mutually supportive relationships and working on them. Manisha always says she feels great when sharing her feelings after a hard clay with people who share similar ideas. Actually we all need someone who would not just hear us, but listen to us, and we need to cultivate the art of listening and understanding people.

Watching Tottenham Hotspur walk out onto the pitch at Rossett Park was a surreal experience to soccer fans. Spurs were set to play against Marine AFC. In fact, this was the biggest mismatch in the 149-year history of the FA Cup. Also, the meaning behind the match was far beyond the game itself.

On account of the COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s FA Cup is seriously affected. Football clubs at the top levels of the sports often postpone matches. For a club like Marine that relies on matchday revenue to survive, hooking a white whale like Spurs and then not being able to even allow the attendance of spectators must have felt cruel.

However, miracle did happen. Knowing the difficult circumstances Marine was facing, 30,000 Tottenham fans opened their pocketbooks and purchased “virtual tickets” at 10 pounds each for a match they couldn’t even attend.

“I have so much respect for the coach Jose Mourinho and Tottenham Hotspur as a football club from this,” said Marine manager Neil Young. “He has done what he said he would do with his team selection. He brought on players he could have easily left on the bench and Tottenham as a club have supported us wholeheartedly. Over 30,000 virtual tickets have now been sold for this match.”

Jose Mourinho also understood what this match meant. “Since 2004, I have been in England and I’ve never played against a side at this level in the pyramid,” he said. “I’m not English, but I know what this means for everyone so I brought a good team, not just for the result, but also for the meaning of the cup.”

The final score was a 5-0 win for Spurs, but it was a match that meant so much more. Tottenham may be going on to the FA Cup fourth round, but it was all of football that won on Sunday.

A lot of people ask this question: “Why is body language so important?” Studies have shown that in the process of communication, non-verbal expression has 65% to 93% more influence than actual text. This means that “how to say” is more important than “what to say”. Of course, this does not mean that you don’t need to do preparation for your interviews, nor does it mean that you can take any short cuts. On the contrary, this means that you have more things to pay attention to and prepare for.

In the real workplace, body language is much more important than you think. Without proper body language, you may find yourself trapped in a circle where you can’t integrate with the external environment, not to mention the difficulties in the absence of body language in the workplace.

“People can often make inferences from actions, and the results of these inferences directly affect lives: for example, who will be employed and who will be promoted.” Academician Amy Cuddy said in a TV talk show. She also said that “Our body language will also affect our perception of ourselves. When you try to make more authoritative actions, your brain will inadvertently receive signals and actually create an idea that you are more authoritative, so that you have more confidence in yourself.”

Therefore, before interviews or important meetings, try not to lean on any object or have a hunched back. Instead, you should try to keep your body relaxed. You can even stand with a relatively authoritative posture—of course, you may need to do these things in the bathroom or places where no one could see you.

Body language plays a crucial role in your job interviews, careers, and everyday life. Paying attention to body language could make strong impacts on your behavior, which could help you achieve better results. So, every time you are nervous or feel that you can’t do it, stretch your body, smile, and tell yourself “Fake it till you become it!”