Should Writers Be Paid for Their E-books Lent by Libraries?
When libraries lend books to the public, authors and publishers receive remuneration from the Government under the Lending Rights schemes.
This year, the government has distributed almost a $ 22 million under these Public Lending Rights and Educational Lending Rights Schemes. For each book in public library collections creators receive $2.11 and publishers receive $0.52.
The amount that each claimant receives is often not very significant, with the majority of authors receiving between S100-500 annually, Still, a previous study has revealed that this remuneration constitutes the second most important source of income for creators from their creative work.
E-books, however, are not covered by these Lending Rights schemes.
One of the main reasons why e-books are not covered is that e-book lending is quite different from print book lending. In case of print books, authors and publishers are arguably losing on customers and revenues when libraries loan their books for free.Creators only receive $2.11 and publishers receive $0.52 for each book in public library collections.
At present, in the case of e-books, many publishers chose not to sell these books to libraries.
While publishers charge libraries high prices for e-books, writers complain that these amounts do not reach them. Publishing contracts often don't specify whether and how much authors receive for e-books sales or for e-lending.
| A．However,this is not the case when libraries lend e-books. |
| B．This may not be a big issue now, for e-books are minor in publishing. |
| C．Also, publishers assume get more profits from libraries where readers pay them more. |
| D．Publishing contracts often don't specify whether and how much authors receive for e-books sales or for e-lending. |
| E．Extension alone would do little if the current funds under the schemes were merely re-distributed from books to e-books. |
| F．For this reason, authors and publishers have been talking the Government into extending the Lending Rights Schemes to e-books. |
2 . During my first decade in prison, I busied myself with exercising and hanging out in the big yard. I hardly grew as a person. It wasn’t until I began college in prison in my 30s that I started to realize my full potential.
Through my journey in college, I became a keen reader and writer, striving to escape prison life by expanding my mind beyond the toxic (有毒的) environments I’d been confined to. I started studying feminism and restorative justice. One concept that really hit home for me was toxic masculinity (男子气概). I come from an abusive home and a neighborhood consumed by gangs, drugs and gun violence. I wanted to understand better why I had used violence to solve my problems.
I have found, however, that strangers stand between me and many of the books I want to read.
Books, like everything an imprisoned person receives— personal mail, emails, photos, news and education materials — are evaluated by prison officials and rejected or shared with us. Corrections departments typically claim they ban books that contain sexual content, racial hatred or depictions of violence, criminal activity, anti-authority attitudes or escape. In practice, PEN America wrote in a 2019 report on prison book restriction policies, the restrictions “have been wide-ranging, from perverse to absurd to constitutionally troubling, with bans being applied in ways that are against logic.”
In Texas, books by Alice Walker, Pablo Neruda and even the former senator Bob Dole have been banned. Throughout the country, prison officials have rejected or tried to ban books about biology (too much nakedness in the anatomical drawings), the Holocaust (some of the victims were pictured naked), sketching, dragons and even the moon (it could “present risks of escape,” according to one New York prison). At one point, Colorado prison officials blocked a prisoner from reading two of President Barack Obama’s memoirs because they were “potentially harmful to national security,” although they later reversed that decision.
Claiming such bans are necessary for the safety and security of prisons seems ridiculous. If anything, many banned books could contribute to a safer environment in prisons and in the societies imprisoned individuals are released into. Practically every author I have encountered while in prison, from Don Miguel Ruiz to Angela Y. Davis, has played a role in my efforts to grow and become a better person— someone who can live in society by adding to it, as opposed to taking from it.
Without college and without access to books and materials that expanded my mind beyond the razor wire (钢丝网) and towering concrete walls, I might still be wasting my time on the yard. My worldview would still be dictated by toxic masculinity and the violence and harm that surround it. That’s not who I want to be when I leave this prison. It’s not who I want to see sent back into society.
1. Why did the author turn to violence when he was young?| A．Because his parents and neighbours told him to do so. |
| B．Because he had read a lot of books about hatred and violence. |
| C．Because he had been bullied a lot by peers during his childhood. |
| D．Because the environment where he grew up was filled with violence. |
| A．Some books may post threats to national security. |
| B．Some books may lead to extreme religious behaviour. |
| C．Some pictures may contain sexually inappropriate content. |
| D．Some books may potentially encourage prisoners to escape. |
①to broaden the prisoners’ horizon ②to prevent prisoners from escaping
③to encourage prisoners to contribute to society ④to reduce violent behaviour
| A．①②③ | B．①③④ | C．①②④ | D．②③④ |
| A．Reading books is important for a teenager’s growth. |
| B．Toxic masculinity is harmful to a person’s growth. |
| C．It is unreasonable for authorities to restrict reading for prisoners. |
| D．It’s never too late to realize one’s academic potential even in prison. |
3 . Literature opens up a new world for the reader. Whenever I feel upset by anything or stressed out about the little or big things in life, going back to my books gives me an escape from the harsh reality I am surrounded with.
For me, English Literature isn’t just reading extensively or collecting knowledge from various sources and assembling them, it is so much more. Since my childhood, I have been fascinated by how the authors, poets, and, more importantly, playwrights convey passion and sentiments. I personally find it so difficult to convey my feelings and emotions in a set of words, but it continues to fascinate me as to how they accomplish to cede their sentiments almost perfectly in a string of words. For example: “Lines along my face, they dull my eyes, yet keep on dying, because I love to live.” She says that by facing the challenges and pain presented by life to her, there are now lines of resignation and sadness on her face. The sufferings given by life are such that her eyes have lost their light and have become dull. Yet the wonders of life give her the power to continue.
What I like the most about literature is that we are shaken out from our comfort zone when we read literary masterpieces. A lot of books may not glorify the protagonists but give an insight into why a particular character behaved in a certain manner.
Being an ardent lover of history, I have always been intrigued by the evolution of English literature over the ages. Take the books by Charles Dickens or Jane Austen for example, you can clearly see they have always shown the other side of the world, the sufferings experienced by the working class. Even their comedies do not feel like comedies at all. However, after the Victorian era ended and Modernism started, the modern literature’s influence (I believe) was WW1 and WW2. When you read “Gone with the Wind” and read about people like Ashley Wilkes, you begin to question the purpose of fighting wars. They have always written of times which transcend their own. They have shown rebellions of their ardors averse to the understandings of the society. These rebellions against the society’s established dogmas have been one of the main themes of the literature of those times. But there is a clear contrast between the Victorian literature and the modern literature. All of the writers always took on the moral code, character and conscience. The evolution of literature is totally unique in its own way.
English Literature has opened my mind towards intellectual activities and has helped to define my feelings and emotions with beautifully weaved words.
1. The underlined word “resignation” in paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to ________.| A．dismission | B．retirement | C．happiness | D．obedience |
| A．Adaptability to the status quo. | B．Reflections on the characters’ behaviors. |
| C．Relief from the actualities. | D．Knowledge about the times. |
| A．The leading character in the literary works outweighs the minor roles in inspiring readers |
| B．In the context of a set era, almost all writers have identical literary genre |
| C．The end of the Victorian era marked the beginning of questioning the purpose of the battlefield |
| D．I find it hard to convey emotions while I was absorbed in the expressiveness of the literature |
| A．How English literature speaks my heart? | B．How literary giants help me advance ahead? |
| C．Why literature is a microcosm of society? | D．Why I love studying English Literature? |
4 .
Travel Back in Time | |
| TOMORROW THEY WON’T DARE TO MURDER US By Joseph Andras In 1956, National Liberation Front Member Fernand Iveton planted a bomb near Algiers. The hoped-for explosion was intended only to be a piece of symbolism, so he put it in an unused shed. He was arrested before it could go off and then mercilessly tortured and hanged. Andras’s fictionalized retelling of Iveton’s story was published in French in2016 to immediate acclaim, winning the prestigious Prix Goncourt. It’s now been translated into English. The book is just 137 pages long, but every one of them is tense, a nightmare of noble intentions gone horribly wrong. | INSIDE MONEY By Zarchary Karabell Given complete access to the 200-year accomplishment of the U.S.’s oldest private bank, Karabell weaves a fascinating tale of the East Coast WASP establishment includes characters such as Alan Greenspan and Averell Harriman, one-time governor of New York. The firm has remained privately held, so its inner workings have been a mystery until now. |
Or See the Future | |
| THE FLIP SIDE OF FREE By Michael Kende It’s not a new insight that we pay for “free” apps and sites with our personal data, but Kende has a more detailed take than most. The digital development specialist at the World Bank Group looks at how the web came to be free via unified standards and the coming social considerations that will need to be faced once the public understands how much “free” actually costs. | THE CODE BREAKER By Walter Isaacson Isaacson’s previous biographies have focused on such men as Steve Jobs and Leonardo da Vinci. Here he tells the story of Jennifer Doudna, a biochemist who won a Noble Prize for the gene-editing technology known as Crispr. The book is an excellent reader on the complex subject, its benefits (fighting disease) and its ethical hurdles (designer babies). |
Anything Other Than Covid | |
| LETTERS TO CAMONDO By Edmund de Waal There are very few ceramic artists working today and even fewer ceramic artists with a part time as an author. Best known for his exquisitely crafted porcelain and his bestseller The Hare with Amber Eyes, de Waal’s latest piece of fiction combines the two sides of his professional life. This book consists of imaginary letters to the real-life Moise de Camondo, a rich Jewish banker who ran one of the most successful institutions in the Ottoman Empire and was also an art sponsor. | ANTIQUITIES By Cynthia Ozick Most people experienced some form of Covid isolation. Ozick, 92, who’s been shortlisted for the Pulitzer and Man Booker International prizes, has created a character who's similarly tortured, though it’s old age, rather than a pandemic, that finds him holed up indoors. As he recalls his life, he is drawn to memories of his cousin, a famous archaeologist and to a mysterious schoolmate. |
Or More About Plagues | |
| LET THE RECORD SHOW: A POLITICAL HISTORY OF ACT UP NEW YORK, 1987-1993 By Sarah Schulman Michael Lewis is something of a master at the onset of the AIDS crisis that no one, other than the tortured, seemed to care. ACT UP, a political and activist effort, was born from that apathy. Schulman's comprehensive, timely Book records the group’s hundreds of demonstrations, and almost as many political groups. | THE PREMONITION: A PANDEMIC STORY By Michael Lewis Thirty years ago, fear and death played out at capturing complex events in the very recent past. Here he turns the pandemic into a tale of good and evil: Evil, in this case, is the administration; good is a crew of scientists, doctors and public health experts. The narrative follows three central characters-a biochemist, a public health worker, and a U.S. federal employee. |
| A．drew inspiration from something real. |
| B．reveal something ugly about their society |
| C．are works written against a background of war. |
| D．provide thrilling plots even though they are short in length. |
①cybersecurity
②artificial robot
③disease-curing
④economic development
| A．①② | B．①③ | C．②③ | D．③④ |
| A．Both are fictionalized works. |
| B．Both are about artistic creations |
| C．Both deal with the theme of isolation |
| D．Both are written against the background of Covid-19. |
①One is a true story and the other is fictional.
②One is about history and the other focuses on the present.
③One is about the causes of the plague and the other focuses on the results.
| A．①② | B．①③ | C．②③ | D．①②③ |
5 . Julia Whelan climbed into the recording room in her home office. In preparation, she had avoided alcohol the night before, had avoided milk since waking at 6 a.m. and had run through the warm-up voice exercises.
Whelan, 38, is the calm, confident female voice behind more than 400 other audiobooks, as well as the narrated versions(叙事版本) of many articles. Once she has taken on a project, she reads through the book once or twice, deciding on themes to highlight when she gets into the recording room by using different tones and accents, and emphasizing certain words. “Narrating a book really is a performance,” she said, “and it can be harder to do than acting, because I can’t use my eyes or facial expressions to convey something to the audience.”
As she spent time subsuming herself in the writing of others, she began to think more about her own creative ambitions. Just before the pandemic, she began “Thank You for Listening,” combining her writing with the experiences she has collected as a narrator.
Writers say that Whelan has helped them understand their own work. “When I listen to Julia read my stories, it sounds like she is calling you over to tell you a great story,” said Nuzzi, whose work has been narrated by Whelan. “When I write now, I try to think like that, that I am calling a reader over to tell him a great story. It has completely changed my approach.” Whelan said that she also learns about her writing when she experiences it as a narrator. “There is something about it that changes when you’re performing it,” she said. “I read the book out loud during every stage of its revisions but it’s different when you sit down and have the microphone in front of you, when I finally am in all the characters and the story comes to life.”
1. Before recording a book, Whelan __________.| A．acts out its narrated version |
| B．builds up strength through exercise |
| C．determines the focus of its subject |
| D．varies its emphasized words |
| A．dismissing | B．involving | C．maintaining | D．presenting |
| A．It enables her to think in readers’ view. |
| B．It inspires her to be absorbed in the story. |
| C．It provides her with diverse life experiences. |
| D．It reminds her to pursue her creative ambition. |
| A．Excellent narration is based on convincing stories. |
| B．Narrating is a more rewarding ambition than writing. |
| C．An influential writer is definitely a wonderful narrator. |
| D．Experiences as a narrator can change the writing approach. |
6 . The Best Way to Enjoy a Book
I am no slow eater. I can’t remember the number of times I was told as a child not to gobble my food. Nor have I been a slow reader. I went through books like combine harvesters through crops in the English village of my childhood.
Perhaps I will continue to gobble my food until my last meal on this planet. But books! They are an entirely different matter. Having been prevented from visiting bookstores and libraries during these days of isolation. I have decided to make changes. After all, didn’t someone once say, “It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good.”
I imagine slow reading to be like slow cooking: a variety of ingredients mixed into something one can truly enjoy. Slow reading means enjoying each sentence, absorbing all of those paragraphs of description that had probably been sweated over by the author and, more often than not, skipped over by readers like me.
This isn’t to say I pay only random attention to a book. Before deciding on one to buy or borrow, I always read the synopsis and the “About the Author” section. I would also read the dedication, the foreword and the author’s acknowledgments. Only then do I move on to the book’s opening sentence. This is essentially how I had selected the two books that I most recently finished.
In order to truly enjoy these two novels, I rationed my reading to two hours a day-no more and no less. A funny thing happens when you take two hours out of the day - every day – for something you really, really enjoy. I experienced a quiet sense of accomplishment that I had missed for years.
English writer Kate Atkinson’s Transcription has been advertised as “a novel of rare depth from one of the best writers of our time.” Award-winning Newfoundler Michael Crummey’s The Innocents, meanwhile, is said to be “a richly imagined and fascinating story of hardship and survival.” I am glad I didn’t read Transcription at my usual pace. I suspect I would have missed much of the brilliance of the writing. Instead, I made myself completely involved in the life of 18-year-old Julie. I often paused at the end of a chapter to reread it for the joy of laughing aloud at the heroine’ observations.
The Innocents is about the life of two orphans in an isolated bay in Newfoundland. It was hard not to run through this powerful narrative—but I resisted the temptation. My patience was rewarded with a deeper understanding of the character and rich description of northern Newfoundland— so real that I could almost feel the lichen (地衣) between my toes.
So here I am, two books finished that took me a month to read. I have been entertained, enriched and transported in time and place like I never have before. Having discovered the joys of taking my time over a book now, I doubt I will ever again announce proudly, “It only took me a day or a couple of hours to finish!”
1. According to the article, the author used to ______.| A．read novels while gobbling her food. |
| B．spend no more than two hours reading every day. |
| C．consider it a waste of time to read fictional stories. |
| D．finish reading a book in a day or even a couple of hours. |
| A．even the craziest ideas can become popular. |
| B．even the most popular ideas can go out of fashion. |
| C．even the most positive situations can harm someone. |
| D．even the most negative situations can benefit someone. |
| A．it is fun to read book related to food. |
| B．it is rewarding to pick up various types of books. |
| C．it is worthwhile to appreciate the brilliance of every sentence. |
| D．It is important to read the synopsis before deciding on a book to read. |
| A．imagined herself to be an orphan. |
| B．ended up with a deep appreciation of the story. |
| C．read through the descriptive part of the book quickly. |
| D．thought about the relationship between hardship and survival. |
7 . Criticism is judgment. A critic is a judge. A judge must study and think about the material presented to him, accept it, correct it or reject it after thinking over what he has read, watched or heard.
Another word for criticism is appreciation. When I criticize or appreciate some object or another, I look for its good points and bad points. In reading any printed or written matter, I always have a pencil in hand and put any comments in the book or on a separate paper. In other words, I always talk back to the writer.
That sort of critical reading might well be called creative reading because I am thinking along with the author, asking him questions, seeing whether he answers the questions and how well he answers them. I mark the good passages to store them in my memory and ask myself about every other part and about the complete piece of writing; where, how and why could or should I improve upon it?
You might think that doing what I suggested is work. Yes, it is, but the work is a pleasure because I can feel my brain expanding, my emotion reacting and my way of living change.
Reading exercises is a great influence on a person. If pictures, still or moving, accompany the reading, the memory will retain the material for a long time.
Just as evil books can corrupt, so also can good books gradually work a change on a corrupt person.
Let's get back to the beneficial effects of thinking while reading. It helps us to enlarge our minds. We understand more about the universe, its people and many of its wonders. We learn to think and observe in new ways. We certainly do get a feeling for the language we are reading. All good writers in any language have been readers who read critically and continuously.
1. According to the writer, creative reading is ________.| A．raising questions and answering them for the author |
| B．reading and giving comments on the materials one has read |
| C．thinking in the same line with the author |
| D．storing up facts in one's memory |
| A．asks what he does not understand |
| B．talks back to the author |
| C．understand the background on which the works are based |
| D．looks for the good and bad points of the material he has read |
| A．following one's thought closely | B．accepting |
| C．considering | D．agreeing |
| A．understand more about their surrounding than others. |
| B．have a thorough insight to the problem in life. |
| C．have the feeling of the language they read. |
| D．have read extensively(广泛地) and critically |
8 . The middle-aged woman with the black sweater around her shoulders had assumed an accurately adjusted posture: feet shoulder-width apart, arms slightly bent, fists loosely tightened, muscles relaxed yet alert.
She was not preparing for a tae kwon do match, but performing her personal version of the underground battle engaged in daily by millions of New Yorkers: reading, attentively, on a sardine-can D train heading swiftly toward Brooklyn in the evening rush.
“I am a New Yorker,” the woman, Robin Kornhaber, 54, told me as if those five crisp words explained everything. “I can do anything on the subway.”
Reading on the subway is a New York custom, for the masters of the intricately (错综复杂地) folded newspaper like Ms. Kornhaber, who lives in Park Slope and works on the Upper East Side, as well as for teenage girls thumbing through magazines, aspiring actors memorizing lines and immigrants taking comfort in paragraphs in a familiar tongue. These days, among the worn covers may be the occasional Kindle, but since most trains are still devoid of Internet access, the subway ride remains a rare low-tech interlude (插曲) in a city of multitasking workaholics. And so, we read.
Even without a seat, even while pressed with strangers into human panini, even as someone plays a keyboard harmonica and makes a loud noise with a cup of change, even when stumbling home after a party.
There are those whose commutes are carefully timed to the length of a Talk of the Town section of The New Yorker, those who systematically page their way through the classics, and those who always carry a second novel in case they unexpectedly make it to the end of the first on a slow F train. There is a lawyer from Brooklyn who for the past two months has catalogued what she and other commuters are reading on a blog, “The Subway Book Club,” and a student at the New School who spent the summer passing out 600 donated books to subway riders to spread her passion for reading.
And then there are those reading the readers, imagining their story lines. That man in a suit studying “Rosetta Stone Level 3 Italian” on the No.2 train must be preparing to meet his fiancée’s family in Tuscany. The woman reading a young-adult novel at 81st Street is probably a teacher preparing for class.
1. Which of the following is the best title of the passage?| A．New York Rush | B．Reading Underground |
| C．Underground Battle | D．Subway Escape |
| A．Robin Kornhaber is a little bit nervous on the train |
| B．Robin Kornhaber is physically prepared for train ride |
| C．Robin Kornhaber is a typical New York train rider and reader |
| D．Robin Kornhaber stands for New Yorkers who rely heavily on subway |
| A．It is a culture for New Yorkers to read underground. |
| B．Some people will make guesses at those reading on the train. |
| C．People have no Internet access on most underground trains in New York. |
| D．People must make a careful schedule if they are to read underground. |
| A．sardine-can D train | B．human panini |
| C．tae kwon do match | D．keyboard harmonica |
9 . Growing Up in the Library
I grew up in libraries, or at least it feels that way. I was raised in the suburbs of Cleveland, just a few blocks from the brick-faced Bertram Woods branch of the Shaker Heights Public Library system. I went there several times a week with my mother. She and I would walk in together, but as soon as we passed through the door, we each headed towards our favorite sections. The library might have been the first place I was ever given autonomy.
Even when I was maybe four or five years old, I was allowed to head off on my own. Then, after a while, my mother and I would reunite at the checkout counter with our finds. Together we'd wait as the librarian pulled out the date card and stamped it with the checkout machine — that giant fist thumping the card with a loud chunk-chunk, printing a crooked due date underneath a score of previous crooked due dates that belonged to other people, other times.
Those visits were dreamy, frictionless (没有摩擦的) periods that held the promise of leaving me richer than I'd arrived. It wasn't like going to a store with my mom, which guaranteed a tug-of-war between what I wanted and what my mother was willing to buy me; in the library, I could have anything I wanted.
After we had finished checking out the books, I loved being in the car and having all the books we'd gotten stacked on my lap, pressing me under their solid, warm weight, their Mylar covers sticking a bit to my thighs. It was such a thrill leaving a place with things you hadn't paid for; such a thrill expecting the new books we would read. On the ride home, my mother and I talked about the order in which we were going to read our books, a serious conversation in which we planned how to pace ourselves through this charmed period of grace until the books were due.
When I was older, I usually walked to the library by myself, lugging back as many books as I could carry. Occasionally, I did go with my mother, and the trip would be as engaging as it had been when I was small. Even when I was in my last year of high school and could drive myself to the library, my mother and I still went together every now and then, and the trip unfolded exactly as it had when I was a child, with all the same beats and pauses and comments and daydreaming, the same perfect rhythm we'd followed so many times before. After my mother passed away two years ago, I plunged into a deep shadow of grief for a long time. When I miss my mother these days, I like to picture us in the car together, going for one more magnificent trip to Bertram Woods, during which we talked, laughed — as if she were still in my company, giving me inexhaustible strength.
1. In this passage, the word “autonomy” (paragraph 1) is closest in meaning to “________”.| A．vitality | B．freedom | C．inspiration | D．entitlement |
| A．they would plan to read their newly-borrowed books with feverish enthusiasm |
| B．they would have a serious conversation about which book attracted them the most |
| C．they would be anxious to recommend to each other the books they had borrowed |
| D．they would agree on buying the books they had just borrowed if they enjoyed them |
| A．Grieved. | B．Shocked. | C．Miserable. | D．Comforted. |
| A．One specific memory of a childhood trip to the library. |
| B．The fond childhood memories of her mother taking good care of her. |
| C．How her affection for going to the library has endured into her own motherhood. |
| D．Why her own child made up their mind to become a librarian after finishing college. |
10 . Some people actually read to get sleepy. But in general, we do not want to fall asleep while reading a book or studying. Reading books was taught to us as an activity that should be done in our spare time.
Many people, even if they are enthusiastic about reading, start to fall asleep after reading for a while.
According to experts, the act of reading a book causes the brain and eyes to work hard, causing sleepiness after a while. While following the words on the pages and transforming them into meaningful sentences by interpreting the letters, both the brain and the eyes exert effort.
| A．This action, which requires intense work of the brain and eyes, causes sleep after a while. |
| B．However, it is one of our most important needs, as human beings. |
| C．Therefore, the reading environment should be chosen correctly. |
| D．It is necessary to accept that reading a book is a job that requires energy |
| E．There are many different factors that can cause this situation. |
| F．There are people among us who are eager to read books and have made it a habit. |
