【推荐1】Robert Vallieres hikes for miles, often three times a week, climbing the high mountains, just to get a glimpse of his beloved birds.

Many years ago, as a young engineer in the army, Vallieres was struck in the head in a task in Gulf War, which ended his military career and left him fighting for his life. He was 28 years old and battled stress, survivor’s guilt and PTSD (创伤后应激障碍). “When you’re disabled and you really can’t move too much, you’re wondering if death is nearby.” he said.

Despite his condition, Vallieres still had to be a father to his little boy-a curious child who helped jump start his love for birds.

One day, his three-year-old son noticed a bird and asked his father what kind it was. Vallieres bought a bird identification book and started learning along with his son. He bought some small telescopes and the two began observing birds together near their home in New Hampshire.

Then came another turning point. Vallieres saw an ad in the newspaper for a birding trip in New Hampshire’s White Mountains and signed up.

Now it’s his joy and renewed purpose to track and save the peregrine falcon and the bald eagle-two species nearly wiped out by the chemicals used for killing pests. It’s hard physical work for anyone, which needs patience, keen observation skills and time. But Vallieres is a natural at it, because his military training made him a perfect match, especially in reading maps and navigating.

Vallieres says not only does his volunteering help with physical fitness, but also his mental state. “To find rhythm or purpose in life besides myself,” says Vallieres, “I shouldn’t get stuck on myself but have a way out.”

【推荐2】When my father was getting ready for work, our house was ruled by knocks (敲击声) and words.

He used to come downstairs to breakfast. The morning paper lay beside his plate. He always read the “Deaths” first. Then he made his first knock on the table, and one of my sisters brought his milk and bread, already buttered for him. Usually he said nothing, but once I heard him say, “I love you very much, Edith. I would love more if you buttered my bread on both sides.” He read the paper all through breakfast.

Two knocks on the table meant “I am ready for my tea.” If a single knock followed that meant, “More bread, please.”

After breakfast he said, “Boots.” The paper was spread (展开) for him over the back of an arm chair. Yesterday’s paper was put on the chair for his feet, and his boots were brought to him, freshly cleaned. He read standing at the same time putting on his boots. With one boot finished he said, “Bus.” At that point one of the girls went outside to the garden gate and waited there. Her job was to stop a bus when it came. It came early sometimes and it had to wait for my father. “Overcoat, hat.” One of my sisters had already brushed his overcoat. Now she held it open for him. Another girl came with his hat, nicely brushed. “Handkerchief, pipe (烟斗).” They were brought and put into his pocket. He looked out of the window and said either “Walking stick” or “Umbrella”. It was handed to him. Ready now, he was still reading the paper. He didn’t put it down until he heard the shout “Bus coming!” Then he kissed my mother and went out. The girls breathed freely.

How lucky a man was to have a wife and five daughters at home!

【推荐3】Shortly before Christmas last year, Brazilian piano player Joao Carlos Martins invited his friends to a bar near his home. He wanted to show them the best gift he had received in many years: A new pair of gloves.

They are not just gloves, however. The specially made bionic devices are letting the 79-year-old play with both hands for the first time in more than 20 years.

By his retirement last March, he had undergone 24 medical procedures to try to reduce pain caused by a progressive disease and from a series of accidents. Before the gloves, which were especially developed for him, Martins could only play songs slowly with his thumbs and, sometimes, his pointer fingers.

However, one designer believed Martins' retirement had come too early. That designer, Ubirata Bizarro Costa, created special bionic gloves for Martins' hands. The gloves help move his fingers up after they press on the piano keys. Costa said he created early models based on images of Martins’ hands. But he said those models were “far from ideal”. He then decided to tell Martins about his efforts. Costa and Martins then spent several months testing different models. The perfect match came in December, and cost only $ 125 to build.

These days, Martins never takes off his new gloves—even when he goes to sleep. Martins said he has received more than 100 devices in the last 50 years as possible solutions to his hand problems. None worked well or long enough. “But these gloves do,” he said.

The new gloves have given Martins a new goal. He hopes to play the piano at New York's Carnegie Hall in October. He is already set to conduct a concert celebrating the 60th anniversary of his first appearance there.

【推荐3】I confess I hesitated when the editor in chief of The New York Times Magazine told me in late 20l4 that I would be editing a new front-of-book column called Letter of Recommendation, about stuff people really like. The column was the brainchild of our staff writer, Sam Anderson, he explained. Sam figured that there was no shortage of places to find out what writers hate but few spaces for writers to talk about what they love.We would push against this trend, 900 words a week,40-something times per year.

The reason for my hesitation was a simple, unfortunate fact about writing. Writing about things you hate is easy: not just fun, but generative. The criticism tends to entertain, even if you disagree, but the ode doesn't. The writerly tone is well-suited to our age, but it's hard not to see it as a collective defense mechanism as if revealing your true feelings exposes your unmentionable secrets to the public. Obsessions, meanwhile, are inseparable from our peculiarities as people we come to love things for often weird reasons. When the column really works, it's as revealing about the author as it is its subject. One writer, a man in his late 30s, for example, recommended Pedialyte, which he drinks to balance the effects of both drinking and exercise, and to cheat his way back to youth.

I probably see somewhere between three and five Letter of Recommendation pitches a day. It's a great spot for trying out new writers in the magazine, so I try my best to keep up with all the email, but I often fail.（I feel genuinely terrible about this every day of my life.）Determining which to assign involves seeing how it meets the various criteria（评判标准）we've settled on over the years.We don't like the column to be timely---everything else in the world is timely. But on the other hand, we need to put a headline on the thing that people might reasonably recognize, stop and read about. There should be a personal angle to the recommendation, but also some universally recommendable aspect. But then again, it shouldn't be too recommendable: this isn't a column for life-hacks.The recommendation itself should be attractively unexpected "sideways", as editors are perhaps too fond of saying, but really, it's just an excuse to cut brilliant writers loose to amuse or inspire us.