3 . This is Water

If you’ve never heard David Foster Wallace’s public speech about his life philosophy, prepare to have your world view shifted. Brilliant and approachable, it is an uplifting, quick, and fun read. In This is Water Wallace encourages us to transform boring tasks into opportunities to practice compassion and be happy with the strangers and, ultimately, ourselves.

The Wisdom of Insecurity

When anxiety strikes, there’s nowhere to run. It is a terrifying feeling that stops us in our tracks and holds us back from realizing our potential. Alan Watts believes the answer lies in embracing the here and now. He says we spend too much time planning for the future or regretting the past. In this book, he shows us just how to live fully in the now and thus lead happier, more fulfilling lives.

Big Magic

Just like the cover image suggests, Big Magic is a literary explosion of inspiration. The worldwide best-selling author of Eat Pray Love, Elizabeth Gilbert wants you to remove your fears, embrace curiosity, be free of self-doubt and live your most creative life. To do this, Gilbert shared her own creative processes, wisdom, habits, and unique point of view on creativity to help you uncover those “strange jewels”. Big Magic was an instant number-one New York Times bestseller, and it’s one of our must-read happiness books.

Your Life Manual

If you need a little more guidance and direction, then Your Life Manual will lay it all out for you. Author David Ambrose details his unique philosophy without technical terms. These are practical tips you can actually carry out in your own life.This easy-to-read guide offers simple techniques and information to help you experience real happiness.

4 . Lisette LeJeune had to stay home with both of her young kids because they suffered from an infectious (传染性的) disease. She knew she would have a very _________ time. Their family members did their best to bring Lisette _________, but since they lived far away, they couldn’t _________ regular visits. During the first week, Lisette could hardly _________ her kids for she was really ill.

Lisette placed a _________ at her front door so the mail carrier could put her letters inside _________ touching the mailbox. Two weeks later, Lisette found a _________ care package outside her house! _________ the gift was from a relative, Lisette opened the package and found several _______ things in it, like chicken noodle soup and fresh fruits. It was also __________ by a note from which she knew it was from Mary, the __________ who Lisette had only briefly spoken to one time when picking up mails! The note __________, “I hope you all are feeling better!”

Lisette was instantly __________. “What made me emotional was just the __________ of her preparing the gift, in the morning before starting __________ mails or the night before, and her keeping us in __________,” she explained. Lisette left a gift and a note to __________ Mary’s kindness and shared the story online.

__________, Lisette and her kids will be able to go out soon because they’re on the road to __________! While Mary may think nothing of what she did, it __________ the world to this family!

The TV series, The Knockout,     1    (dominate) trending topics on China’s major social platforms since it was released in mid-January. For its twisting plot and in-depth examination of the     2    (complex) of humanity, it earned 8.6 points on Douban. Simultaneously, the drama has been translated into more than eight subtitled languages to reach     3    (view) in North America, Southeast Asia and Europe.

The show’s overwhelming popularity has also sparked a craze in various related fields, ranging from the boosting tourism in Jiangmen, Guangdong province, its filming location,     4    a surge in sales of The Art of War, the favorite book of the drama’s top villain (反派) Gao Qiqiang.

    5    (consist) of 39 episodes, the drama stars actors Zhang Songwen and Zhang Yi, who respectively play a fishmonger-turned-gang boss and a     6     (devote) police officer, telling how they turn from friends to enemies over a period of two decades.

Zhang Songwen’s character Gao appears as a humble fishmonger (鱼贩)    7    relies on his small business to take care of two younger siblings. However, he is bullied by some villains in the market. After tasting the benefits brought by “a special relationship”, Gao gradually goes onto the road of crime.

“In contrast, the police officer An Xin is     8     lonely idealist, who will make you believe that even the     9    (dark) corner can be illuminated by a glimmer of light,” says Zhu, the scriptwriter of the play.

Many viewers suggest the show signals the rise in quality of domestic TV offerings and express their hope     10    more, equally compelling, homegrown series will be forthcoming.

My first year of senior high school felt awkward. The school was twice as big as my old school, and to make matters worse, my closest friends went to a different high school. I felt very lonely.

One cold and windy Sunday afternoon, I was sitting at home at our dining room table doing homework, with a fire going in our fireplace. As usual, my cat was lying on top of my papers, purring(发出呼噜声)loudly. She was never far from me. I had rescued her when she was a kitten and put my name on her collar in case she got lost again.

Suddenly, I smelled something strange, and then I noticed that smoke was pouring in. It filled the room so quickly that we all ran out into the front yard. By the time we made our way outside, the whole roof was in flames and the fire was spreading quickly.

When the fire was finally out, our house was almost completely burned down. I was in a bad mood and then it struck me...I hadn’t seen my cat. Where was my cat? Much to my horror, I realized that my cat was gone and my heart ached for her. Then all at once it hit me-the new school, the fire, my cat—I broke down in tears and cried and cried.

The next day, I went to school. But I was totally embarrassed by everything. My clothes and shoes were borrowed from my aunt. I had no books or homework, and my backpack was gone. I had my life in that backpack! I didn’t want to grow up if it was going to be this way. I just wanted to curl up and quit school.

It always seems that bad news spreads quickly. Everyone in high school, including the teachers, was aware of my sad situation. What a way to start off at a new school! This was not the kind of attention I was looking for.

The next day at school, people were acting even stranger than usual. They kept asking me to hurry up to the gym. I thought it was strange, but when I went into the gym, I knew why.

There was a big table with all kinds of stuff on it.

A week later, I was planning my new bedroom when the doorbell rang.

10 . Some ants have figured out how to avoid getting lost: build taller anthills, according to a recent study.

Desert ants living in the hot, flat salt pans of Tunisia spend their days looking for food and reach as far as 1.1 kilometers from their nests. To find their way home, desert ants use a navigation system, relying on the sun’s position and counting their steps to track their location relative to their nest.

But this system becomes increasingly unreliable as the distance from the nest increases. “We realized that, whenever the ants in salt pans came closer to their nest, they suddenly pinpointed the nest hill from several meters distance,” says Markus Knaden, a researcher at Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology. “This made us think that the hill serves as a nest-defining landmark.”

So Knaden and colleagues captured ants from nests in the middle of salt pans and from along their shorelines. Only salt-pan nests had distinct hills, up to 40 centimeters tall, whereas the hills on shoreline nests were lower or barely noticeable. Next, the team removed any hills and placed the captured insects some distance away from their nests. Salt-pan ants struggled more than shore ants to find homes. Shore ants relied on the shoreline for guidance and weren’t affected by the hill removal, the researchers concluded.

The team further conducted another study to see if desert ants were deliberately building a taller hill when their surroundings lacked any visible landmarks. So, the researchers removed the hills of 16 salt-pan nests and installed (安装) two 50-centimeter-tall blocks near eight of them. The other eight nests were left without any artificial visual aid. After three days, the researchers found that seven ants from the unaided nests had rebuilt their hills. But only two ants from the nests with man-made blocks nearby had bothered to rebuild.

“It implies that ants regularly assess the complexity of their environment and change their decisions based on their conclusion,” says ecologist Judith Bronstein of the University of Arizona.