【推荐2】Five children are learning in the same class of Eton in London, the largest and most famous of England's public schools and become the best friends. However, each of them has quite a different lifestyle.

Jane comes from a family of scholar( 书香门第) in Scotland , and both her parents are writers. At the age of seven, she began to write little pieces of poems, and since then she has been spending her spare time writing poems. The only shame is that she has never got one of her works published and she is expecting such a chance.

Robert is a good boy and his father is a brave fire fighter in London who has saved many people's lives from fires or other dangers, and he also wants to become one when he graduates from high school. Now he is eager to learn the basic knowledge of fire fighting.

John is a bookworm(书呆子) from Wales and always goes to bookstores to fix his eyes on the newly published books. But he always forgets to pick up his things that he has left in the checkroom. Last Sunday, when he left the bookstore, he left his hat and jacket behind.

Rose is a lovely and slender(身材苗条的) girl from Manchester. She is so much interested in dancing. Never is there a weekend past without seeing her spending several hours in the schools dance room. And this Saturday, she is asking her friends from other schools over to dance with her.

Jack ,an Irish boy ,has read many travel books about Europe and is really attracted by what is described in them. So when his school is planning for a trip to Europe, he is among the first to sign up for it. And now he cannot wait to start the journey.

【推荐3】Benefits of Solitude(独处)

Learning about yourself

When you’re in any sort of social setting,you aren’t strictly yourself. You’re instead whoever you are in that context. For example, if you are a mother spending time with your children, you’re a parent in that situation. If you’re hanging out with coworkers, you’re a fellow employee. When you’re by yourself, you’re just you. This gives you an opportunity to learn how the various social contexts of your life shape your behavior and self perception(察觉).     1    .

Helping with self-regulation

It’s worth noting that spending time alone doesn’t have to have a harmful impact on your social life.

    2    . This is because spending time in solitude helps people develop the skills they need to regulate their own emotions. When you’re alone with your thoughts and feelings, you’re more aware of them. That means you have more opportunities to exercise a degree of control over how you think or feel about particular situations. This helps afterwards.     3    , your self-regulation skills will help you determine if you’re talking too much or not enough, overreacting to perceived slights, making insensitive comments, and much more.

    4    

Some of the greatest benefits of solitude are practical in nature. For instance, researchers have often found that, all other factors(因素)being equal, people who spend time alone are often more likely to develop certain strong talents than their peers. These talents can include playing an instrument, painting, cooking, or doing anything else that requires practice. It’s easy to understand why this is the case.     5    , there are also many abilities that a person is more likely to develop when they have the opportunity to devote alone time to them.

【推荐1】The Stories Behind 3 of the Photos from Our Pictures of the Year

Each year, National Geographic will publish a special issue to showcase some of the impressive images taken around the globe to celebrate the high-quality photography. This year, 49 were selected as the best photos of the year out of millions of images, and the photo editors give a glimpse behind the scenes of 3 images included in 2022 Pictures of the Year annual special issue.

Qaanaaq, Greenland//Kiliii Yüyan

Photographer Kiliii Yuyan is no stranger to documenting the daily lives of native peoples and the issues they face around the world. He commits himself to capturing surprising and unique images for each story while his colleague Mallory has quit in their tracks. In his story, two cousins push strollers (婴儿车) across a snowy plain in Greenland on their way to annual dogsled races. The story itself challenges readers to think about how to treat their ecosystem without destroying it and gives more insight into the daily lives of Inughuit women.

Canary Islands, Spain//Carsten Peter

It’s hard to capture the speed, texture, and sense of danger of lava flowing from a volcanic eruption, but that’s what photographer Carsten Peter achieved with this image. He documented the 85-day eruption for National Geographic, then returned to focus on the damage and on the scientific fieldwork that had been done once the slow-moving lava had cooled.

Minneriya. Sri Lanka//Brent Stirton

Photographer Brent Stirton provided a window into these animals’ lives, which she hopes will increase awareness and stir up sympathy through the photo.

The image was tough to capture not only because Stirton needed to get close to the wild animals for the frame but also because it was a challenging time to work in Sri Lanka. The government was collapsing in economic decline. “I think there’s an opportunity to show people a side of animals they may have not seen before,” she says.

For more pictures and stories, please click the https://www. nationalgeographic.com.

【推荐2】Anthony Doerr’s new bestseller, All the Light We Cannot See, holds special appeal for me. That’s how I would describe it. From the poetic language, to the realization of what the tile actually means: that underneath the surface of history, there is light that has not been seen, and stories that have gone untold.

I’m going to be honest-love for this book didn’t hit me straight away. In fact, my first attempt to read it last month ended with me putting it aside and going to find something easier, lighter and less descriptive to read. But this book is built on beautiful imagery. Both in the literal sense-the physical world of 1940s Paris and Germany, and the metaphorical (隐喻性的)sense-scientific and philosophical references to light, to seeing and not seeing, and the differences between the two. It’s a beautiful work of genius, but it does get a little complicated at times.

However, when we get into the meat of this World War II novel, it’s also an upsetting story of a childhood torn apart by war. It’s about Parisian Marie Laure who has been blind since she was six, and a German orphan called Werner who finds himself at the center of the Hitler Youth. Both of their stories are told with sensitivity and sympathy, each one forced down a path by their personal circumstances and by that destructive monster-war.

I think this is the kind of book you will never appreciate if you stop too soon-I learned that lesson. From the first to last page, there is a theme of invisible lines running parallel (平行的)to one another and sometimes, just sometimes, crossing in the strangest way. These two lives we are introduced to seem to be worlds apart, and yet they come together and influence one another. It was this, more than the predictably awful tale of war, that made me feel quite emotional.