The Metropolis Book Club

Membership

All you need to do is fill out the order form at the bottom of the page, select your first order from our book list and then post the completed form back to us.

Special offers for new members

As a special offer, you may choose any reduced-price books from our new members’ book list, to the value of 100 yuan in total. Tick the box on your form to order a free watch. Join before the end of this month and you receive another free book carefully chosen by our staff. Order an audio-book from the many on offer, at half the recommended retail price.

When you’ve joined

As a member you get around 50% off the publisher’s price of every book you buy, and what’s more, they come straight to your door. Your free club magazine arrives once a month to keep you up to date with the latest best-sellers we’ve added to our list. On the Internet, you can find all our titles for the year at our exclusive members’ website. Our website also has a book swap service where members can request or offer books for exchange.

Being a member

All you have to do is order four books during your first year. After that, you can decide on the number of books you wish to take. In each of your monthly club magazines, our experienced staff choose a “Book of the Month” for you, which is offered at an extra-special price. If you do not want this book, just say so in the space provided on the form and send it back to us. We always send the book if we do not receive this form.

Once we receive your order, your books are delivered within one week. And remember, you have up to a fortnight to decide if you wish to keep the books you have ordered. If they aren’t what you expected just send them back!

Paloma sat at a computer in the school library. She stared at the blank screen and the blinking cursor. She rummaged around in her backpack for a rubber band, and then she pulled her hair into a thick ponytail. Paloma looked at the computer screen. It was still blank. She sighed and flipped through her notebook to reread the assignment Mr. Molina had given the class three weeks ago. It was due in just two days, and Paloma knew that she couldn’t procrastinate any longer.

Write a creative short story using an experience that you have had recently, Paloma read. Your story should include two examples of figurative language.

Paloma and her family had recently taken a trip along North Carolina’s coast. They had visited four different lighthouses, and Paloma wondered what it would be like to live in a lighthouse. She knew that before lighthouses were automated, they were run by a lighthouse keeper who lived on the premises. Paloma thought she’d love to be a lighthouse keeper. Without thinking about it any longer, Paloma began to write the story.

I sat with my cat Sadie curled on my lap and looked out the window at the crashing waves. The heavy rain beat against my lighthouse like a thousand footsteps racing up and down the walls. I held Sadie closer, and she let out a small meow of displeasure. I knew that the coming storm could not be too dangerous if Sadie was still acting normally. I had read that animals can sense changes in weather and will seek shelter from a tornado or hurricane. I was relying on Sadie’s calmness to get me through my first hurricane on the island.

I knew that my lighthouse was sturdily built. It had survived more than one hundred years’ worth of hurricanes and tropical storms. There was no reason to believe that it couldn’t survive another. I looked up at the staircase that spiraled above me and worried as I felt the tower sway slightly in a gust of wind.

Paloma stopped and reread what she had just written. She smiled to herself in delight, saved her story, and then settled into her chair to continue writing. She wasn’t sure what was going to happen next, but she knew that if she kept going, the story would continue to tell itself. Paloma couldn’t wait to find out where it would take her.

For many years, Bruce Bexler dreamed of going where no human had gone before. He wanted to cut a path through unexplored lands and discover rare, exotic species.

That might sound like an impossible dream, but Bexler turned it into a reality.

In December 2015, he and a team of Australian and American scientists ventured into an isolated tropical rain forest on the island of New Guinea. They were the first people ever to enter the mist-covered region. “As time was limited, we were dropped in by helicopter. Once we were on the ground, there were no trails anywhere; it was really hard to get around,” Bexler says.

Within minutes of landing, the team spotted a black chicken-like bird with strange orange skin hanging from its neck. The scientists soon determined that the unusual creature was a type of honeyeater — the first new bird species to be sighted on New Guinea in 60 years.

The honeyeater wasn’t the only surprise for the scientists. They discovered more than 40 previously unknown plant and animal species — 13 birds of paradise, 20 frogs, four butterflies, and five palms. “We were like kids in a candy store,” Bexler recalls. “Everywhere we looked, we saw amazing things we had never seen before.”

The newfound species didn’t shy away from the scientists. Two long-nosed echidnas — primitive egg-laying mammals — let the visitors pick them up and take them back to camp to study them. An echidna looks like a hedgehog and is also called a spiny anteater.

Bexler thinks the animals weren’t scared because they had never seen humans before. “In almost all parts of New Guinea, animals are hunted for food, and because of this, they are very cautious of people,” he explains. “This area gives scientists a place where they can go to study the behaviours of animals that have not yet learned to be afraid of people.”

Scientists believe the area is probably the largest untouched forest in Asia. Local people called Kwerba hunt and collect plants from the outer-edges of the forest but told Bexler that not even their ancestors had gone so far into the woods. The wooded area is approximately a 10-day walk from the nearest village.

Bexler and his team did not have enough time during the expedition to study the area completely. They hope to return and expect to record many more undiscovered species. “We just scratched the surface,” Bexler says. “Anyone who goes there will come back with a mystery.”

Petrol and diesel cars may still dominate (影响) our roads, but their days are numbered. A recent university study found that current electric cars could be used for 87 per cent of daily car journeys in the US. That figure could rise to 98 per cent by 2020.

One hurdle to the widespread adoption of electric cars has been “range anxiety”—drivers’ concerns about running out of juice on a journey. While petrol stations are conveniently located across national road systems, the necessary network of electric charging stations is still being developed. In fact, charging points are becoming increasingly common throughout the USA.

Attitudes towards electric vehicles have changed quite considerably over the last few years. Not that long ago, electric cars met with distrust, and their high price tags drove customers away. Thanks to improvements in battery capacity, recharging times, performance and price, the current generation of electric cars is starting to persuade critics. Plug-in cars will soon give internal combustion engine models a run for their money.

As well as advancements on the road, electric vehicles are taking to the sea and sky. Electric boats are among the oldest electric vehicles, having enjoyed several decades of popularity from the late 19th to the early 20th century before petrol-powered outboard motors took over. Now, the global drive for renewable energy sources is bringing electric boats back. Steps towards electric planes are also being made, with Airbus and NASA among the organizations developing and testing battery-powered planes. The experiments could soon make commercial electric flight a reality.

Electric vehicles do not produce any emissions. Were the US to act on the study’s findings and replace 87 percent of its cars with electric vehicles, it would reduce the national demand for petrol by 61 per cent. However, because of the production processes and the generation of electricity required to charge these vehicles, they cannot claim to be completely emission-free. Even so, as many countries continue to increase their use of renewable energy sources, electric vehicles will become even cleaner.