- •Unit I What to Read? How to Read?
- •Vocabulary Notes
- •Types of Books
- •Focus on vocabulary
- •Reading
- •Listening
- •Vocabulary
- •Vocabulary
- •Focus on vocabulary
- •Reading
- •How One Should Read a Book
- •Writing
- •Have your say
- •Reading Is Interaction
- •Act it out
- •Vocabulary
- •Focus on vocabulary
- •Reading
- •Writing
- •II. Adjectives applied to books
- •III. Aspects of a novel or a story
- •1. Subject, Theme
- •3. Setting, set
- •4. Characters
- •6. Ideas, views, attitudes
- •7. Style
- •8. Spirit, atmosphere, mood, feeling
- •Focus on vocabulary
- •In each set, find the odd-one-out, explain your choice.
- •My Favourite Escape: Books
- •Listening
- •Reading
- •The queen of crime
- •Act it out
- •Interview with an author
- •Have your say
- •Listening
- •Reading
- •Writing
- •An appraisal of a book
- •Have your say
- •II. Read books, rather than about books
- •IV. Read rapidly
- •V. Read by snatches
- •VI. Read what you like
- •VII. Read what you do not like
- •Vocabulary
- •Focus on vocabulary
- •Read the Better Magazines and Books
- •Reading
- •What Does it Take to Be a Good Reader?
- •Listening
- •Writing
- •Familiar Quotations
- •Have your say
- •Focus on vocabulary
- •Reading
- •Why Trashy Books Are So Good for Little Boys
- •Writing
- •A letter
- •Act it out
- •Have your say
- •Interview 10 people (first-year students, your relations, friends, etc.) to find out how they select books.
- •Unit 4 how to develop the habit of reading
- •My several worlds
- •Vocabulary
- •Focus on vocabulary
- •Reading
- •Listening
- •Writing
- •Act it out
- •Have your say
- •How Shall The Habit of Reading Be Cultivated?
- •Unit 5 will books survive?
- •Vocabulary
- •Focus on vocabulary
- •Reading
- •Writing
- •Read a good powerbook lately?
- •Vocabulary
- •Focus on vocabulary
- •In each set find the odd-one-out; explain your choice.
- •Reading
- •In the article, find the words that mean approximately the same as the following definition.
- •Death of the book or a novel way to read?
- •Act it out
- •Birth of the book to end all books
- •Have your say
- •III books shall survive
- •Reading
- •Burn them or bury them, you can’t beat books
- •Writing
- •Have your say
- •Brush up everything you have done and get ready for a round-table talk about books and reading.
Listening
Learning to Read (Understanding Spoken English 2003, p. 26)
Writing
Read the Familiar Quotations and try to memorize them. Choose one you like best and write an essay commenting upon it.
Familiar Quotations
Old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626)
Authors, like coins, grow dear as they grow old. It is the rust we value, not the gold.
Alexander Pope (1688-1744)
I love everything that's old: old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wines.
Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774)
Never read any book that is not a year old.
Ralph Waldo Emerson(1803-82)
All books are divisible into two classes: the books of the hour, and the books of all time.
John Ruskin (1819-1900)
A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)
Life being very short and the quiet hours of it few, we ought to waste none of them in reading valueless books.
John Ruskin (1818-1900)
Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.
Henry David Thoreau(1817-62)
A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.
Mark Twain (1835-1910)
The books that everybody admires are those that nobody reads.
Anatole France (1844-1924)
When I take up a work that I have read before (the oftener the better ) I know what I have to expect. The satisfaction is not lessened by being anticipated.
William Hazlitt (1778-1830)
There are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts.
Charles Dickens (1812-1870)
Have your say
Which of the recommendations given by James C. Fernald do you carry out or think that you should? Which don’t you act on? Why?
“Read what you like” and “Read what you do not like”. Are these recommendations compatible? If not, choose the one you agree with and support your opinion.
II
Read the extract from the essay by J.B. Priestley. Write out and learn the new vocabulary. Sum up the extract in 1-2 sentences.
What is J.B. Priestley’s approach to selecting books for young people? Do you share his opinion?
Do you agree that young readers should be allowed to read any books they like, should be given absolute freedom of authors?
DO VISUAL ARTS PRESENT A DANGER TO BOOK-READING?
By J.B. Priestley
Some critics, in my view, do more harm than good. These are the critics who take a lofty and somewhat arrogant stand and seem to regard themselves as grand inquisitors of art. They announce that only a few books by a few carefully chosen authors can be regarded as Literature, and that all else is rubbish on which no time should be wasted. Thus, Stendhal is Literature, Dumas is not; Henry James is Literature, W.W. Jacobs is not. And nothing is gained, but much is lost, by this hoity-toity treatment. It is better to assume that all writing is not merely informative, all poems, novels, essays, even criticism, are literature, of a sort, ranging from the shockingly bad to the good and glorious. A lad who has enjoyed Dumas may come to enjoy Stendhal. Jacobs, a genuine artist of his own kind, may lead to James. So long as there are readers trying this and that, there is hope for literature.