2 . 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.

6 . The books we read when we’re young have a special sort of power: they can inspire us to be brave and resilient (Matilda by Roald Dahi), take us on thrilling adventures (Divergent by Veronica Roth) and even introduce us to tragedy (The Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson). They’re as formative as anything else in our young lives, and sometimes they’re the first place we encounter larger-than-life ideas. Consider the lasting cultural import of To Kill a Mockingbird or even the urgency of a newer best seller like I’ll Give You the Sun, Jandy Nelson’s 2014 novel centering on a contradictory issue. In The Magic Words, Cheryl B. Klein, an executive editor at Scholastic whose projects include the last two Harry Potter books, sets out to inform would-be writers on how great novels for young readers work.

The market for YA novels is booming: sales in the children’s and YA sector have been neck and neck with those of adult books in recent years, and adult authors, including Meg Wolitzer (Belzhar) and Carl Hiaasen (Razor Girl), are getting in on the phenomenon. Magic Words aims to be a master class. If you think it sounds silly, it isn’t. In the era of elevated self-help sensations like Marie Kondo and Breníé Brown, The Magic Words is of a piece.

Klein deconstructs the seemingly obvious clear plotlines, sympathetic characters to reveal the technical intricacies of some beloved classics. L. M. Montgomery surely didn’t whip up Anne of Green Gables as a cash-in endeavor. But for those who want to capitalize, Anne is instructive: what’s timeless and broadly appealing about Anne - her teenage heart and impulses——is what to examine. Once you understand that. Klein encourages you to get personal: What makes you ideal to write your story? And what does it mean to the reader?

On the latter question, The Magic Words is more than a handbook. It is also a timely social commentary on the responsibility YA writers have to young adults. Those who write to a younger demographic must start with an awareness of their readers——not only their age but also how they might connect with the issues, both the mundane bullies and the cultural tolerance that characters face. The narratives we tell young readers can influence how they understand and value the world around them. The magic isn’t in the words: it’s in how the words come together to reflect and affirm the realities of a diverse young-adult experience.

8 . Books by Economist writers

More. By Philip Coggan. Hachette; 496 pages; $34. Profile Books; ￡25

A history of the global economy by our Bartleby Columnist. Covering the development of key sectors such as manufacturing and energy production, it shows how links between people and countries have allowed individuals to grow not just more prosperous, but taller and stronger, and to live longer and have more choice in how they run their lives. A “brilliant survey”, thought the Times; a “fantastic sweep”, reckoned the Financial Times.

Coveted. By Melanie Grant. Phaidon; 208 pages; $89.95 and ￡69.95

When, asks the picture and luxury editor of 1843, does jewelry make the leap from fashion accessory to art? Her richly illustrated profiles of leading designers range from Faberge’s and Cartier’s links to Art Nouveau and Art Deco, to the collaboration between Georg Jensen, a Scandinavian brand, with the architect Zaha Hadid. The New York Times said “the book showed the complexity, power and artistic impact of great design.”

Independence Square. By A. D. Miller. Pegasus Books; 228 pages; $25.95. Harvill Secker; ￡14.99

A nation’s future, and a man’s fate, hang in the balance in this novel of revolution and betrayal. Set between an icy unheaval in Kyiv and a London summer, it stars a sly oligarch, an idealistic young activist and a disgraced British diplomat. “Utterly gripping,” said the Observer, “a novel with its finger on the pulse of geopolitics that still manages to move deeply.” The Spectator called it “a searing indictment of our times”.

Unconventional Wisdom. Edited by Tom Stand-age. Economist Books; 272 pages; $11.99. Profile Books; ￡8.99

A compendium of our explainer articles and daily charts, which spell out how much a ghost reduces a house’s value, how pregnancy makes people more law-abiding and why friends prefer sloppily wrapped Christmas gifts. Compiled by one of our deputy editors.

The Best. By Tim Wig-more and Mark Williams. Moblus; 256 pages; $24.95. Nicholas Brealey; ￡20

A contributor on sport and his co-author cover topics such as why younger siblings have more chance of becoming elite sportsmen, why mid-sized towns produce the most champions and the science of performance. They draw on interviews with Marcus Rash-ford, Pete Sampras and Steph Curry, among others. “Excellent”, said the Australian.

The Classical School. By Callum Williams. Hachette; 288 pages; $16.99. Profile Books; ￡20

A high-speed history of Western economic thought, by our senior economics writer, told in the form of 20 biographies. Alongside household names such as Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill, there are chapters on lesser-known figures such as Harriet Martineau and Dadabhai Naoroji. The Times called it a “brisk, absorbing and entertaining history lesson” with “an engaging cast of characters” that “leaves you a lot wiser”.

The Wake-Up Call. By Adrian Woold-ridge and John Micklethwait. HarperVia; 176 pages; $18. Short Books; ￡9.99

The pandemic, say our political editor and Bloom-berg’s editor-in-chief, proves that government is not just a diversion for politicians but a matter of life and death. The poor performance of Western democracies, particularly America and Britain, shows how far they have fallen behind the Far East, notably China. “A shot in the arm,” said the Financial Times. “Full marks for sounding the alarm,” said the Times Literary Supplement.

9 . A symbol of a booming children’s book market is a self-styled “kaleidoscope (万花筒) of creative genius for kids”, the magazine Scoop, a startup based in Dalston, east London, which the author Neil Gaiman has described as “the kind of magazine I wish we’d had when I was eight.”

Scoop is the idea of the publisher Clementine Macmillan-Scott. A year ago, hers looked like an impossible venture. But against the odds for little magazines, Scoop has survived. Macmillan-Scott said, “I really wasn’t certain we would get to this point, but we are now approaching our first birthday.” She links the magazine’s fortunes to a prosperous market and reports that “through the hundreds of children, parents and teachers we speak to at our workshops, we know that children are greedy for storytelling.”

Inspired by an Edwardian model, Arthur Mee’s Children’s Newspaperr, Scoop is a mix of innovation and creativity. Establishment heavyweights such as the playwright Tom Stoppard, plus children’s writers such as Raymond Briggs, author of Fungus the Bogeyman, have adopted its cause. The magazine has also given space to 10-year-old writers and pays all contributors, high and low, the same rate — 10p a word.

It’s a winning formula. Macmillan-Scott reports “a quarterly sales increase of roughly 150% every issue”, but is cautious about her good fortune. “It’s all too clear to us that these children are hungry for print.”

Scoop focuses on the most profitable part of the children’s market, Britain’s eight to 12-year-old readers. In literary culture, this is the crucial bridge between toddlers (儿童) and adolescents and its publisher knows it. Macmillan-Scott is committed to listening to readers aged eight to 12, who have an editorial board where they can express their ideas about the magazine. “If we don’t get these children reading,” she says, “we will lose out on adult readers. To be fully literate, you have to start as a child.”

Macmillan-Scott argues against the suggestion that reading is in decline. “If you look at our figures,” she objects, “you’ll find that children do read and that Scoop is part of a craze for reading hardback books. Kids love paper and print. They might play games on a digital device, but they prefer not to read on a Kindle. The real market for e-books is among young adult readers.” Some of her evidence is anecdotal, but her sales figures and readership surveys support a picture of eight to 12-year-olds absorbed in books.

“What our research shows beyond question,” she says, “is that children have a love for reading that’s not seriously threatened by other kinds of entertainment. Reading for pleasure is a very real thing at this age, and the worries that some adults have about children losing interest in reading are simply not grounded in reality.”

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.     1    . We recommend you read a book for at least half an hour a day. Remember, the most important and healthy food that can improve your brain is the book.

Many people, even if they are enthusiastic about reading, start to fall asleep after reading for a while.     2    . However, the books we read in our childhood to put us to sleep created a wrong perception. Ever since we were little, we read books to sleep and we were told stories. An application such as falling asleep by reading a book is among the main reasons for this situation. The question of why we feel sleepy while reading a book is confusing for many people. Let’s consider the answer to this question together.

    3    . If you try to read a book at an hour when you are tired both physically and mentally, you will cause your body to spend more energy. Inevitably, people get sleepy when reading a book at night.

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.     4    .