【推荐2】Books can't stop a global pandemic. But, for a short while, they can let us forget the world around us and transport us to different places, allowing us to travel in spirit. Here are some picks for this month:

Rohinton Mistry: A Fine Balance

Mistry's novel focuses on the lives of four central characters whose lives are on a downward spiral, from poverty to outright destitution and, ultimately, death.

Mistry does not whitewash the reality of urban poverty in India. But as readers, we become absorbed in his characters lives we hope with them, we fear for them and, at the end, we cry for them.

Elena Ferrante: Mу Brilliant Friend

Elena Ferante'r novels take us straight to the Italian city of Napoli Starting with My Brilliant Friend, the four novels chart the intensive relationship between two girl, Elena Greco (Lenù) and Raffaella Cerullo(Lila) who grow up in a poor neighborhood in the 1950s.

Reading Ferrante's description calls forth images of Napoli and makes us feel like we are standing in the Piazza del Plebiscito. We can fell, hear and smell Napoli around us.

Patrick Modiano: The Search Warrant

The Search Warrant pieces together the real-life story of Dora Bruder, a young Jewish girl who went missing in Paris in December 1941. Modiano attempts to retrace Dora's movements across Paris and his book is full of evocative descriptions of quiet squares and streets.

By tracing Dora's possible steps, Modiano evocatively recreates the twilight atmosphere of Paris under occupation.

Kazuo Ishiguro:The Remains of the Day

The Remains of the Day tells the story of Stevens, the aged butler of Darlington Hall, and his ill judged life choices that saw him being involved with British fascism in the interwar years.

This allusion to British fascism in particular is something that makes this novel stand out；it is a subject matter not often discussed or even taught.

【推荐1】To many of us, art is obviously a kind of human expression of creativity. But in recent years, you may have read news about artificial intelligence (AI) creating its own art, such as painting or writing poems. Some people worry that AI might someday replace artists.

    1    Many artists today are turning AI into a useful tool. Instead of replacing artists, AI is bringing artists more possibilities.

A piece of music created by AI recently attracted attention. AI was used to turn the novel virus into a piece of nearly two-hour long music based on its protein structure. The project was led by Markus Buehler, an American musician and MIT professor of engineering. He assigned (指定) a unique note to each amino acid (氨基酸) in the protein.    2    

Listeners found the project to be “mind-blowing”. “It allows me to see the virus from a new angle,” said one listener.    3    As The Verge wrote, “AI helps artists play around in unpredictable ways, creating things beyond what they have ever thought was possible before.”

    4    For example, in the comic and animation industries, there are now AI tools that can automatically (自动地) color in black-and-white line drawings. Although the results can be unpredictable and require a little cleanup, it “could give artists room to experiment, by cutting down the time it takes to color each frame (画面)”, said Joao Do Lago, animator of Netflix’s Castlevania.

As Peter Ward wrote for The Culture Trip, art of every kind has always been influenced by technological breakthroughs.    5    

【推荐2】On a dark winter day in Russia in 1896, Sergei Prokofiev sat by a piano next to his mother. She was helping him compose (作曲) his first piece of music. Sergei was only five years old.

He had overheard his parents discussing a terrible famine (饥荒) in India. The picture Sergei had of those hungry people in his mind caused him to write a story, in the form of musical notes. Sergei could not read music, so he picked out a tune on the piano keys, and his mother recorded the notes. Sergei titled it “Indian Gallop.”

Sergei's mother began giving him piano lessons for 20 minutes a day, and his ability grew quickly. She had a great love for music, too, and Sergei often lay awake in bed at night and listened to her play the piano.

Sergei's parents found a famous music teacher for him. The teacher shouted at Sergei when he didn't practice reading and playing music. Sergei later wrote, “I wanted to compose great musical plays, and instead I was given all sorts of boring tasks.” Yet he persisted with his studies and grew up to be a great composer.

In 1936 a children's theater asked Sergei to write music that would teach children about different instruments. He was happy and wrote the piece in a week, calling it Peter and the Wolf.

Sergei's Peter and the Wolf was enjoyed by children as well as adults. The first time Sergei played the piece on the piano, the children listening to it loved it so much that they made him play the ending three extra times. He was excited.

Today Sergei Prokofiev is remembered not only for his contributions (贡献) to classical music, but also for his sense of fun.

【推荐2】In elementary school, Glenn Cameron was very aware of the challenges faced by his friend, Roger, who had lost a hand. Now he has built an artificial helper for him.

The robotic hand is called “Dexi”. Each of its fingers can move independently. The strength and speed of the hand’s “muscles” can be controlled. He’s also created a digital version of this hand, which responds on a computer screen. Through a special headset, the system takes electrical signals from a human brain, sends them to a computer, and then the computer “tells” the hand what to do. For example, to make the hand close, you “see” a fist in your head.

In fact, Cameron’s first robotic hand was 3D printed online. Realizing the hand was too limited, he decided to build his own. It was quite a challenge, but his new version was better. It was also cheap, compared to many other robotic hand projects. Cameron says designing and building the hand was hard, but he went on. Then came the one Roger is using.

Cameron is working on a hand that can actually be used by a person who’s lost a hand at present. He says the new hand will be simpler, because there won’t be as much space. To make up for this, he is adding a mini camera and trying to make the hand smarter.

Cameron encourages young people who think they might want to do something demanding and similar, “You just begin working towards it. Take one little step at a time, purposeful and steadfast, sooner or later you’re going to get to the place you long for.”

【推荐1】In six states in the USA, drivers are forbidden to use cell phones while operating a vehicle. In 19 states, anyone who is behind the wheel of a car will get a ticket for text messaging. While cell phone may distract people when they are supposed to be paying attention to traffic, some feel that these laws are an invasion of privacy.

With the increase in the popularity of cell phones, more and more people are using them while driving. Police officers have found talking on hand-held or even hands-free phones while driving is becoming the cause of more and more crashes. As a matter of fact, talking on a cell phone does reduce the brain activities associated with driving by 37 percent. In nearly 25 percent of crashes, police officers have reported that cell phones have had a distracting effect on the drivers. Although evidence shows that using a cell phone while driving can cause traffic crashes, many people believe that they have a right to privacy in their own vehicle.

Privacy advocates have been attempting to define privacy as a fundamental human right. In America privacy is not guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States, but the Supreme Court has ruled that citizens be granted a right against government intrusion (侵犯). This is one of the reasons why advocates believe that giving fines for doing something as simple as talking on the phone goes against the privacy of the individual. People are free to do what they feel like doing, but if it has the potential to harm others, then there should be laws stopping this behavior.

Just as a citizen of a country has freedom of speech but it is still not allowed to yell “fire” in a crowed movie theater, people should not be allowed to talk on a cell phone while navigating their way through traffic. Last year at any time during the daytime, there were 800,000 individual text messaging or making phone calls with hand-held cell phones. That same year, 6,000 people died in automobile accidents related to cell phone use. These statistics show that cell phone use in a vehicle can put one's life in danger.

【推荐2】This past weekend my wife and 1 had the opportunity to be in Colorado for a school reunion.On Saturday, we decided to take a day trip up to the mountains for a hike.The hike started at Echo Lake, near the base of the beautiful Mt Evans.The path would follow a river up the mountain to another lake.

We crossed the river a few times on wooden planks and walked through some thick trees slowly and unsteadily but eventually we made it to the lake.It was absolutely beautiful and definitely worth the hike.But we noticed that the path continued up the mountain further.We had plenty of water and a little more energy so we decided to keep going and see where it led.

The path got steeper from there and sometimes it was hard to find.But we stuck with it because every quarter mile the trees would open up and we’d get an amazing view of the mountains around us.Eventually, the path led us to another lake that was even more beautiful than the first.

We were about to stop and eat lunch, having reached our destination, when my wife noticed a waterfall at one end of the lake.We could see that the path we were on continued up the mountain to what must be the source of the waterfall.Having seen it, we knew we had to try and make it.

During the next mile of hiking we had to trudge through dark, sticky mud and then hop on logs and rocks across rivers.The last half mile was really steep, and we had to hike through the thick snow which was far beyond our expectations.The altitude was starting to affect us as the air got thin and our muscles ached.

Eventually, we made it to the top and found one of the most beautiful sights I have ever had the privilege to see.At the top there was yet another lake, with amazingly blue water, the snow-capped mountains reflected on its surface.It was breathtaking.

I learned a lesson about setting goals that day.

It was published in 1936 and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1937. The novel is one of the most popular of all time, and an American film adaptation of the same name released in 1939 became the highest grossing(票房) film in the history of Hollywood and received a record-breaking number of Academy Awards.

Mitchell’s book relates the story of rebellious(叛逆的) Georgia woman named Scarlett O’Hara and her suffering with friends, family and lovers in the middle of antebellum(战前的) South, the American Civil War and the Reconstruction Period. It also tells the story of love that blossomed between Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler.

The novel tells us a series of fantastic stories on the mainland of mid-century, including court struggles, battlefield killings, travel adventures and magic counterbalance(抗衡). The author shaped more than 100 characters. The whole book contains seven chapters, forming an impressive picture. The Song of Ice and Fire emphasizes the struggle of human nature, which was adapted into a TV series, attracting audience at home and abroad.

The Hidden Corner is a popular TV series adapted from the novel. It includes a tense crime and mistery drama, unexpectedly pitiful childhood, family ties and the severe realities of life. Since its release in June, The Hidden Corner has quickly become one of the country’s most discussed and watched shows.