2 . Now that we have briefly explored the history of the short story and heard from a few of its creators, let us consider the role of the reader. Readers are not empty vessels that wait, _______ raised, to receive a teacher’s or a critic’s interpretation. They bring their unique life experiences to the story. With these_______ , the best readers also bring their attention, their reading skills, and most importantly, their_______ to a reading of a story.

My students always_______ me to discuss, analyze, interpret, and evaluate the stories we read without destroying the excitement of being beamed up into another world. For years I _______with one response after the other to this challenge. Then one day I read an article by a botanist who had explored the beauty of flowers by x-raying them. His illustrations showed the rose and the lily in their_______ beauty, and his x-rays_______the wonders of their construction. I brought the article to class, where we discussed the benefits of examining the internal structure of flowers, relationships, current events, and short stories.

A short story, _______ , is not a fossil to admire. Readers must ask questions, guess at the answers,_______what will happen next, then read to discover. They and the author form a partnership that brings the story to life. Awareness of this partnership keeps the original excitement alive through discussion, analysis, interpretation, and ________. Literary explorations allow the reader to admire the authors’________ as well as their artistry. In fact, original appreciation may be enhanced by this x-ray vision. The final step is to appreciate once again the story________— to put the pieces back together.

Now it is your turn. Form a partnership with your author. During your________in reading, enter into a dialogue with the published scholars featured in Short Stories for Students. Through this________with experts you will revise, enrich, or________your original observations and interpretations.

During this adventure, I hope you will feel the same as the listeners that surround the neck of my Pueblo storyteller.

3 . I have to admit I’m an old-school reader. Put simply, I   _______old books.

Alone in a new city to _______my first daily newspaper job, I was feeling vaguely anxious as I dipped into a used   bookstore to_______my   mind. The   shelves, full of the smell of the past, quickly_______me. One of the occupational hazards (职业病) of journalism, my chosen_______, is a desire to stay on top of the Next Big Thing. With their cracked spines (书脊) and yellowed_______, the titles in the shop usefully pointed me toward the longer view. “No_______to get too worked up over today’s headline,” they seemed to say. “ There is not much _______ under the sun.”

Francis Bacon’s essays are always a ready antidote (解药). “Prosperity (繁荣) is not without many___ and dislikes,” Bacon wrote, and“___ is not without comforts and hopes.” For me, that comfort and hope often come from a second-hand____.

Reading deeply from the   past can be   at   least as______ as   following the day’s   news. Don’t _____     missing out on the___ gossip. All matters of fact, which a man did not___ before, are news to him.

4 . I was born in India. My dad was a busy doctor, but the best thing he did was to______the Reader’s Digest. He didn’t read_____but the Digest and the Illustrated Weekly of India, because he said they were the only stylish magazines. We looked forward to the RD monthly, simply because we loved them. ______, the postman didn’t at all like the day he brought it. My siblings and I used to ______ him by pulling it from his hand, ______the packing and throwing that back in his bag.

We used to fight for the magazine so much that he nearly fell off his______once!

Realizing what a group of ______youngsters he had to encounter, he soon learned his lesson and always got off his bike______he rang the doorbell, especially on the day the RD had to be______!

It was only when I was 17 that I fully understood the ______ pages. I had an irritating habit of laughing out loud, which I did, in the______places. Once I was travelling to London with my parents. Lost in the jokes from Reader’s Digest, I burst out laughing. People were staring at me in ____ ; my parents were embarrassed, but I was____of all that, and just enjoyed reading my Digest.

______, I started reading all the articles in the RD, and I must say I truly enjoyed reading the magazine from cover to cover. I am now 65 years old. Reader ‘s Digest has ______over the years, but I have not stopped reading. I even got my own subscription.

6 . “Bookshops are places to let your imagination fly high, with so many possible ________ to discover,” says Laura Iverson. She is one of the ________ at Darling Reads bookshop in West Yorkshire, England.

For Iverson, the best thing about working in a bookshop is ________ new books to readers. “ ________ beats that smile when they find the perfect book,” she says. ________ , when it comes to choosing the right one, she has some useful tips.

Don't feel you have to ________ a book because your friend likes it," Iverson says. "Stick to your own interests and choose what ________ you. "

She also ________ asking booksellers for suggestions because it could open your ________ to a new book or writer you would never have considered. "Bookshop staff are so ________ and absolutely love talking about books all day. "

Iverson says that one of her ________ books is Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. She remembers ________ reading it when she was around 12 years old, and not being able to put it ________ . This is one of the things Iverson loves about reading. "No matter where you are, or what you're doing, you can be ________ into another world, once you a pick up a book that fascinates you, in a matter of ________ . "