A Tree Grows in Brooklyn wasn't a new book when my mother was young. It's the story of Francie Nolan struggling up in a tenement slum(贫民区)through the cracks in the pavement to reach the sun.It may be the best book I've ever read about poverty,parenthood, the immigrant experience,and just about everything else.My firstborn daughter is named

My all-time personal favorite. I love this book, all of it: the plot,the characters,the dialogue,much of which was lifted verbatim(逐字逐句地)by John Huston for his screenplay for the beloved movie of the same name.The single best monologue in fiction appears toward the end,when Sam Spade tells Brigid O'Shaughnessy why he's giving her to the police.

Oh-so hard to choose!But I'll go with Gilead.An uplifting tale of love in its many forms,told in a style in which every word is perfect.A joyous read.

If you think 700 pages on the many ways in which unusual kids(autistic, deaf, criminal, genius)can stretch(延伸)their families' conception(理解) of love doesn't sound like summertime reading,Far From the Tree:Parents,Children and the Search for Identity will teach you otherwise.

Every day, unemployed men gather in Jackson Heights, Queens. Many of them are homeless. All of them are hungry. At around 9:30 each night, Munoz's truck arrives, filled with hot food, coffee and hot chocolate. For more than four years, Munoz and his family have been feeding those in need seven nights a week, 365 days a year. Munoz was born in Colombia and his father died in an accident when he was young. When his mother found it difficult to support Munoz and his sister, she made her way to New York, finding work in Brooklyn as a nurse. As immigrants(移民), they often suffered starvation. Later Munoz found a job as a bus driver. “When I see these guys on the street, it's like seeing me 20 years ago when I came to this country,” Munoz recalls.

Munoz began his meal program-An Angel in Queens-in the summer of 2004.Within a few months, Munoz and his mother were preparing 20 home-cooked meals daily. Numbers gradually increased over the years to 35 per night, then 60.In recent months, that number has jumped to as many as 140 meals a night. Munoz gets up around 5:00 a.m.to drive his bus route, and he calls home on his breaks to see how the cooking is going. When he gets home around 5:30 p.m.—often stopping to pick up food donations-he helps pack up meals before heading out to “his corner” in Jackson Heights. “He comes here without fail,” says one of the men. “It could be cold, it could be really hot, but he's here.” Watch Munoz in action in Queens, New York.

“If I don't go, I'm going to feel bad,” he says. “I know they're going to be waiting for me.”

Munoz estimates(估计)that food and gas cost approximately$400 to 450 a week; he and his family are funding the operation through their savings and his weekly$700 paycheck. Asked why he spends so much time to help people he doesn't know, he answers, “I have a stable job, my mom, my family, a house...everything I want, I have. And these guys don't”. So I just think, 'OK,I have the food. At least for today they're going to have a meal to eat.’”

Munoz was named one of the CNN heroes.

The Big Ben is located in the tower at the eastern end of the Houses of Parliament, Westminster, Greater London. It was designed by Edmund Beckett and Baron Grimthorpe.

The Big Ben is very famous throughout the world, but nobody really knows why it is called Big Ben. There are two hearsays about this. Some people say that it was named after Benjamin Caunt, a boxer, who was called Big Ben. More people believe it was called after Welshman, Sir Benjamin Hall. He was the commissioner(特派员)of the work at the time of its installation in 1859.A story was told that during a debate in the Commons on what to call the bell, Sir Benjamin was about to give his ideas when a MP who sat behind the front bench shouted, “Let's call it Big Ben!” Then this name came into being.

The bell hasn't gone through a smooth road since the beginning of its design. Because there was great disagreement about the design of the clock. It took fifteen years to build. In 1857, the bell was completed and tested on the ground, but a four-foot crack appeared and the bell had to be cast again. Finally, the clock started ticking on 31 May, 1859, and struck its first chime(报时)on 11, July. Then in September, the bell cracked again. It was silent for four years but was eventually turned a quarter of a revolution(旋转). In this way, the crack was not under the striking hammer. Craftsmen made a square above the crack to stop it growing longer and it can still be seen today.

The Big Ben is famous not only for its 13-ton weight, but also for its accuracy(准确性) which is a result of its precise mechanism(机械装置). Even one extra penny's weight on the balance will cause a gain of two fifths of a second in twenty-four hours. Although there have been several problems, the bell is still striking today.Its chimes can be heard all over the world on the B.B.C.

For the first time, a causal link has been established between climate(气候) change and the timing of a natural event-the appearance of the common brown butterfly.

Although there have been strong connections between global warming and changes in the timing of events such as animal migration and flowering, it has been hard to show a cause-and-effect link. This is what Michael Kearney and Natalie Briscoe of the University of Melbourne, Australia, have now done.

The researchers compared temperature changes in Melbourne-where the butterfly is common-with recorded observations of the first brown butterfly to be seen in the spring since the 1940s.With each of the past ten years, the butterflies appeared 1.6 days earlier and Melbourne heated by 0.14℃. Overall, the butterfly now appears on average 10.4 days before it did in the 1940s.

The pair are confident in the relationship for two reasons. First, they placed eggs of the butterfly, in special boxes where temperature could be controlled and found that each larval stage had a different response to warmer-than-normal conditions. The egg, which is laid in late summer, and the first larval stage do well at high temperatures, says Kearney. The second to the fifth stages occur in winter and can't survive high temperatures. The knock- on effect is that the larval pupates earlier and the butterfly appears sooner. Second, they made a mathematical model combining these physiological effects of temperature on development with climate data. The model precisely matched the observed changes in butterfly emergence date.

The researchers used several climate models to find out what is likely to have caused the rise in Melbourne's temperature, and ruled out the possibility that natural weather events could account for the warming.