Most people love reading. It is a pleasure of the mind.     1     阅读有一点像体育运动: Your eagerness and knowledge and quickness make you a good reader.     2     Reading is fun, not because the writer is telling something, but because it makes your mind work.     3     Your own imagination works along with the author’s or even beyond his. Compared with his, your experience brings you to the same or different conclusions.

    4     Reading can only be fun if you expect it to be. If you concentrate on books somebody tells you you ought to read, you probably won’t have fun. But if you put down a book you don’t like and try another till you find one that means something to you, and then relax with it,     5     你当然会过得愉快. If you become, as a result of reading, better, wiser, kinder or gentler, you won’t have suffered during the process.

Living Well with Others

A good life is one that is good for living well with others, while living comfortably and honestly. However, not everyone can deal with the relationship well with others. They are looking for new ways to make their life better. This article will cover some ideas you may want to consider.

    1     It’s often been said that a smile is catching. Research suggests that’s true. Studies suggest that friendly engagement (交往) with others improves happiness levels, at least in part. People are more likely to treat a smiling person better than a non-smiling person.

    2     Studies have shown that helping others has a direct relation to individual happiness. Taking time to look after others has been important to understanding “the good life”. Volunteering to help others has been connected to better quality of life.

    3     The golden rule is still the most important rule for getting along with others. Think of how you would like your friends to act around you. If you treat people with love and respect, they will treat you with the same.

Value your friendships with others. The quality of a person’s friendship has a direct effect on their well-being. Friends can increase your sense of belonging and purpose. They will also help prevent you from developing bad habits.

3 . Reading a book and watching a film are two very different experiences, but it’s normal to have high expectations when a film of a favourite book is made. There are many times I have been pessimistic or even disappointed by a film of a book I love.

The source material for a film may be taken from classic novels, short stories, comic books and stage plays, as well as non-fiction such as biographies and autobiographies, even those written by ghost writers. All can work well, but why do many adaptations and indeed remakes fail with both cinema audiences and critics? And why do some adaptations get lower ratings than others?

A key question is obviously how close to the original the film is. Since a typical film is only around two hours long, it becomes a question for screenwriters to decide what is appropriate for the screen and what to leave out. Screenwriters take creative liberty and sometimes there may be changes to the plot, additions, and even different endings to please producers, directors and test audiences. I, like many people, have often left the cinema feeling “the film is not like the book”.

Another problem area is the cast. Finding actors acceptable to film audiences can mean the difference between success and failure. Readers of the book use their imaginations to visualise characters and have very definite ideas about how characters should look and sound. This is where I think many film adaptations fall down.

Despite the challenges, there have been some highly successful films made from popular books. For me, Jaws, Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings all fit this category. And possibly the best proof of a successful adaptation is the James Bond series, the majority of which has been adapted from the 007 novels of Ian Fleming. Perhaps unusually, audiences seem to accept that the actors who have played James Bond have changed so often, although everyone seems to have their favourite. I know I do.

Li Daiyu and her cousin Liu Qian went to Canada to visit their cousins in Halifax on the Atlantic coast. Rather than travel by commercial airline all the way, they decided to fly to Vancouver and then take the train. For both of them, the thought of crossing the whole country by rail was exciting.

Before starting out, they spent a couple of days in Vancouver, seeing the sights. During their first day, as is typical of Vancouver, it rained. Despite the weather, they were able to take a boat ride out into the bay, and later visit an island that had wonderful shops selling crafts and antiques. The next day was clear and mild, and they were pleased to see the beautiful mountains looking out over the city. Later, they took a pleasant hike in a forest just a short distance away.

The next morning, the two girls arose early to take the train to Lake Louise, passing through the Canadian Rockies. Seen from the train window, the mountains and forests of Canada looked massive. When the train arrived at the station, they took a taxi to Lake Louise, where the blue water literally took their breath away with its exceptional beauty. They spent the night, and then took a coach bound north through the Canadian Rockies to Jasper. Looking at the beautiful scenery, they both agreed that it was the most awesome journey they had ever taken. In addition to seeing spectacular mountain peaksand forests, one highlight of their trip was being able to see many different creatures, including deer, mountain goats, and even a grizzly bear and an eagle.

From Jasper, they caught the train towards Toronto. One of the train’s first stops was in Edmonton, the provincial capital of Alberta, the centre of Canada’s huge oil and gas drilling industry. Edmonton is freezing cold in winter, with daily temperatures averaging -10˚C. Since it

From Edmonton, the train headed southeast across the great Canadian Prairie. At school, Daiyu and Liu Qian had learnt that Canada’s population is only slightly over thirty-seven million. However, they did not anticipate seeing such an open country, and were truly amazed. They went through two wheat-growing provinces, where they saw a bunch of farms that covered a very large area.

After another day on the train, eventually they were back in an urban area, the city of Winnipeg. From there, they travelled through the night, and woke up in Ontario—a land of forests and lakes. The train thundered on, through the rolling hills. The bushes and maple trees outside their windows were red, gold, and orange, and there was frost on the ground, confirming that autumn had arrived in Canada. Night came again, and the train turned south towards Toronto. When they woke up the next morning and pulled back the curtains, they could see the wide stretch of Lake Huron—one of the four Great Lakes on Ontario’s southern border. It was not until 9:30 a.m. that they finally reached the capital of Ontario, Toronto. All in all, their trip from Vancouver to Toronto had taken a duration of four days.

10 . CLIMATE CHANGE REQUIRES THE WORLD’S ATTENTION

We have known about climate change for decades. There is little doubt that Earth is getting warmer and warmer (see the graph). A warming ocean and atmosphere along with melting ice and rising sea levels provide evidence of a dramatic change in the global climate.

In 2013, a lot of people were shocked by a news photo of a dead polar bear that was found on Norway’s Arctic island of Svalbard. According to the scientists who found its dead body, all that remained of the polar bear was “skin and bones”. An expert who has studied polar bears for many years said that from the position of its dead body, the bear appeared to have starved and died. Experts claimed that low sea-ice levels caused by climate change meant the bear could not hunt seals as before, so it had to travel greater distances in order to find food. This alarming case showed how the increase in temperature had an impact on Earth’s ecology.

Then what is causing the increase in the global average surface temperature? Climate scientists often mention a key climate process called the “greenhouse effect”, which has two common meanings: the “natural” greenhouse effect and the “man-made” greenhouse effect. The “natural” greenhouse effect refers to the fact that heat from the sun enters the atmosphere and warms Earth’s surface as short-wave radiation. The heat is released back into space at longer wave lengths. Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, such as methane and carbon dioxide, trap some of the heat, keeping Earth’s climate warm and habitable. Without this process, Earth could not sustain life. However, the “man-made” greenhouse effect has now become a big problem. When people produce huge amounts of extra greenhouse gases by burning fossil fuels, more heat energy is trapped in the atmosphere and causes Earth’s surface temperature to rise quickly.

There is strong and comprehensive evidence that the rise in temperature has led to an increase in extreme weather and natural disasters worldwide, not only causing serious damage, but also costing human lives. Climate scientists have warned that if we do not take appropriate actions, this warming trend will probably continue and there will be a higher price to pay. In fact, news reports are frequently broadcast about extreme rainstorms and heatwaves causing deaths and economic losses.

Continued greenhouse gas emissions will result in further warming and long-lasting changes to the global climate. This requires the attention of people all over the world. Governments need to consider making policies and taking appropriate actions and measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We as individuals can also reduce our “carbon footprint” by restricting the amount of carbon dioxide our lifestyles produce. It is our responsibility to seize every opportunity to educate everyone about global warming, along with its causes and impacts, because this is the most serious issue affecting all of us on this planet. So what will you do to help?