2 . For many people today, reading is no longer relaxation. To keep up their work they must read letters, reports, trade publications, interoffice communications, not to mention newspapers and magazines; a never-ending flood of words. In getting a job advancing, the ability to read and comprehend ____ can mean the difference between success and failure. Yet the unfortunate fact is that most of us are ____ readers. Most of us develop poor reading habits at an early age, and never ____ them. The main shortage lies in the actual stuff of language itself – words. Taken individually, words have little____ until they are combined together into phrases, sentences and paragraphs. Unfortunately, ____, the untrained reader does not read groups of words. He read one word at a time with difficulty, often regressing to ____ words or passages. Regression, namely, the tendency to look back over what you have just read, is a common ____ habit in reading. Another bad habit which ____ the speed of reading is vocalization –sounding each word either ____ or mentally as one reads.

To overcome these bad habits, some reading clinics use a device called an accelerator, which moves a bar (or curtain) down the page at a predetermined speed. The bar is set a slightly ____ rate than the reader finds comfortable, in order to “____” him. The accelerator forces the reader to read fast, making word-by-word reading, regression and sub-vocalization, practically ____. At first comprehension is ____ speed. But when you learn to read ideas and concepts, you will not only read faster, but your comprehension will improve. Many people have found their reading skill ____ improved after some training. Take Charles Au, a business manager, for instance, his reading rate was a reasonably good 172 words a minute before the training, now it is an excellent 1,378 words a minute. He is delighted that now he can go through a lot more reading material in a(n) ____ period of time.

7 . We went to the T. B. Blackstone Library, not far from Lake Michigan. You could easily miss the building if you didn’t know what you were looking for. But once you were inside, you could never mistake it for anything else. We passed through two sets of heavy brass doors to the lobby of the library. And if we turned right then, we could see an alcove with tables; this led, in turn, to a big reading room with a gigantic and ancient globe that sat in front of the largest windows. I liked to look at Africa, with the coded colours of the different countries like the Belgian Congo and Rhodesia, and try to remember which countries were fighting to be free just as we were struggling for civil rights. I had heard Daddy talking about the struggle, arguing with the television as someone discussed it on a news show.

One Saturday, as I wandered through the young adult section, I saw a title: Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott. I could tell from looking at the shelf that she'd written a lot of books, but I didn't know anything about her. I had learned from experience that titles weren't everything. A book that sounded great on the shelf could be dull once you got it home, and every bad book I brought home meant one less book to read until we went back in two weeks. So I sat in a chair near the shelves to skim the first paragraphs:

"Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents," grumbled Jo, lying on the rug.

"It’s so dreadful to be poor!" sighed Meg, looking down at her old dress.

"I don't think it’s fair for some girls to have plenty of pretty things, and other girls nothing at all," added little Amy, with an injured sniff.

"We’ve got Father and Mother and each other," said Beth contentedly from her corner.

It was a good thing I’d already decided on some other books to take home, because I didn’t look through the rest of the section that day. I read and read and read Little Women until it was time to walk home, and, except for a few essential interruptions like sleeping and eating, I would not put it down until the end. Even the freedom to watch weekend television held no appeal for me in the wake of Alcott’s story. It was about girls, for one thing, girls who could almost be like me, especially Jo. It seemed to me a shame that she wasn't Black; then our similarity would be complete. She loved to read, she loved to make up plays, she hated acting ladylike, and she had a dreadful temper. I had found a kindred spirit.

8 . “Deep reading” —as opposed to the often superficial reading we do on the Web —is an endangered practice, one we ought to take steps to preserve as we would a historic building or a significant work of art. Its disappearance would jeopardize(危及) the intellectual and emotional development of generations growing up online, as well as the preservation of a critical part of our culture: the novels, poems and other kinds of literature that can be appreciated only by readers whose brains, quite literally, have been trained to understand them.

Recent research in cognitive science and psychology has demonstrated that deep reading —slow, immersive, rich in sensory detail and emotional and moral complexity—is a distinctive experience, different in kind from the mere decoding of words. Although deep reading does not, strictly speaking, require a conventional book, the built-in limits of the printed page are uniquely helpful to the deep reading experience. A book’s lack of hyperlinks(超链接), for example, frees the reader from making decisions —Should I click on this link or not? —allowing her to remain fully immersed in the narrative.

That immersion is supported by the way the brain handles language rich in detail, indirect reference and figures of speech: by creating a mental representation that draws on the same brain regions that would be active if the scene were unfolding in real life. The emotional situations and moral dilemmas that are the stuff of literature are also vigorous exercise for the brain, propelling us inside the heads of fictional characters and even, studies suggest, increasing our real-life capacity for empathy (认同).

None of this is likely to happen when we’re browsing through a website. Although we call the activity by the same name, the deep reading of books and the information-driven reading we do on the Web are very different, both in the experience they produce and in the capacities they develop. A growing body of evidence suggests that online reading may be less engaging and less satisfying, even for the “digital natives” to whom it is so familiar. Last month, for example,   Britain’s National Literacy Trust released the results of a study of 34,910 young people aged 8 to 16. Researchers reported that 39% of children and teens read daily using electronic devices, but only 28% read printed materials every day. Those who read only onscreen were three times less likely to say they enjoy reading very much and a third less likely to have a favorite book. The study also found that young people who read daily only onscreen were nearly two times less likely to be above-average readers than those who read daily in print or both in print and onscreen.

How the British and American Tell Children’s Stories

If Harry Potter and Huckleberry Finn were each to represent British versus American children’s literature, a curious situation would emerge : In a literary competition for the hearts and minds of children, one is a wizard(巫师)- in - training at a boarding school in the Scottish Highlands, while the other is a barefoot boy drifting down the Mississippi, bothered by cheats, slave hunters, and thieves. One defeats evil with a magic stick, the other takes to a raft(筏)to right a social wrong.     1    

The small island of Great Britain is an unquestionably powerhouse of children’s bestsellers: Alice in Wonderland, Harry Potter, and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Significantly, all are fantasies.     2     Stories like The Call of the Wild. Charlotte’s Web, Little Women, and the Adventures of Tom Sawyer are more notable for their realistic portraits of day-to-day life in the towns and farmlands on the growing frontier. If British children gathered in the dim light of the kitchen fireplace to hear stories about magic swords and talking bears, American children sat at their mother’s knee listening tales with moral messages about a world where life was hard, obedience emphasized, and Christian morality valued. Each style has its virtues, but the British approach undoubtedly creates the kinds of stories that appeal to the furthest reaches of children’s imagination.

    3     For one, the British have always been in touch with their pagan(异教徒的)folk traditions and stories, says Maria Tatar, a Harvard professor of children’s literature. After all, the country’s very origin story is about a young king tutored by a wizard. Legends have always been accepted as history, from Merlin to Macbeth. “Even as the British were digging into these magical worlds, Americans, much more realistic, always viewed their soil as something to exploit,” says Tatar.

American write fantasies too, but nothing like the British, says Jerry Griswold, a San Diego State University professor of children’s literature. He said, “    4    ” To prove it, he mentioned Dorothy, the heroine of Wizard of Oz(绿野仙踪)who unmasks the great and powerful Wizard as a cheat. Meanwhile, American fantasies differ in another way: They usually end with a moral lesson learned - for example, in Oz, Dorothy’s journey ends with the realization: “There’s no place like home.”

10 . Amazon Charts

The Top Five Most Sold & Most Read Books of the Week

Stephen King’s terrifying, classic # 1 New York Times bestseller, “a landmark in American literature (Chicago Sun-Times)”— about seven adults who return to their hometown to fight a nightmare they had first been troubled with as teenagers…an evil without a-name: it.

Readers of Stephen King know that Derry, Maine, is a place with a deep, dark hold on the author. It reappears in many of his books, including Bag of Bones, Hearts in Atlantis and 11/22/63. But it all starts with It.

In 1558, the ancient stones of Kingsbridge Cathedral looked down on a city split by religious conflict. As power in England shifted dangerously between Catholics and Protestants, royalty and commoners clashed, testing friendship, loyalty and love…

From a master of contemporary fantasy comes the first novel of a landmark series unlike any you’ve ever read before. With A Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin has launched a genuine masterpiece, bringing together the best the genre has to offer. Mystery, intrigue, romance and adventure fill the pages of this magnificent saga, the first volume in an epic series sure to delight fantasy fans everywhere.

Brilliantly written with his signature humor and real experience from his research trip to Cuba… Nelson DeMille is a true master of genre.

In this spectacular father/son collaboration, Stephen King and Owen King tell the “highest of high-stakes stories: What might happen if women disappeared from the world of men?”

In a future so real and near that it might be now, something happens when women go to sleep. And while they sleep, they go to another place, a better place, where harmony prevails and conflict is rare…