What are you reading?

[skylee]

I like Edith Wharton and Henry James. I think stuff written by Maeve Binchy and Bill Bryson are easy to read.

I don't particularly like the Scarlet Letter.

I am reading a book called "上海 Fashion" (bought in Shanghai of course) and have just learnt that the 聽 in 一聽汽水 is from the English word "tin".

[gato]

I am reading a book called "上海 Fashion" (bought in Shanghai of course) and have just learnt that the 聽 in 一聽汽水 is from the English word "tin".

How about 一看气水 as in "a can of soda"?

[florazheng]

Try some more modern books, florazheng, maybe one of those I suggested above. Mark Twain's Huck Finn is important in American history because of its description of black-white relations, but it's not necessarily one of the greats in the history of English-language literature. Even among 19th century American writers, I would rate Nathaniel Hawthorne and Hermann Melville much higher. Those two aren't really easier to read, though.

Gato, thank you for your advice and previous recommendation. I think I will try to read those too. Though the reading of story of Huckbleberry is a big chanllege for me indeed, I still would like to follow it up because I am really curious about it. It's a famous story in China and the story of Huck is interesting. I enjoy those childish stories. I have finished 16 chapters of Huckberry. I hope to stick to it and go back to my questions when I read it at the second or third times. I have a Canadian net pal who works in St. Louis and he always would like to give me a hand to any of my English questions at any time.

I also heard about Nathaniel Hawthorne and I have a novel named Scarlet Letter by him in Chinese for years but I never finished reading it but a few pages. It seems that tthe theme is very serious. I ain't interested in it that much. Anyway, I will try to read as much as possible famous English novels step by step including those I am not really interested in in my spare time. I think they will benefit me. thank you for your comment again .

[florazheng]

How about 一看气水 as in "a can of soda"?

一罐汽水

Tin is not that common for the phrase of a tin of sada in Chinese. At least I hardly say "tin' in Chinese.

I say a bottle of soda or a can of soda

[skylee]

I can roll my eyes too ...

I did not invent the use of 聽/听 to mean a tin/can. I saw that it was used this way in Yunnan and Shanghai. And in the book "上海 Fashion", the author says, "上海人稱罐頭又叫聽頭 (strange grammar IMHO)，源自英文 tin。"

Look I can roll my eyes too ...

[florazheng]

I can roll my eyes too ...

I did not invent the use of 聽/听 to mean a tin/can. I saw that it was used this way in Yunnan and Shanghai. And in the book "上海 Fashion"' date=' the author says, "上海人稱罐頭又叫聽頭 (strange grammar IMHO)，源自英文 tin。"

Look I can roll my eyes too ... [/quote']

Er, Sorry, I didn't read your post about this. I had thought it referred to 一听汽水．　

一听罐头is common

P.S. 一听汽水is OK . But it is just not my usual way to say so, personally.

[gato]

I also heard about Nathaniel Hawthorne and I have a novel named Scarlet Letter by him in Chinese for years but I never finished reading it but a few pages. It seems that tthe theme is very serious. I ain't interested in it that much. Anyway, I will try to read as much as possible famous English novels step by step including those I am not really interested in in my spare time. I think they will benefit me. thank you for your comment again .

Hawthorne is difficult because he tended to use an older vocabulary, no longer in common usage. You might want to try some books or short stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald or Ernest Hemingway. They are among the first famous "serious" American writers of the modern era (along with Edith Wharton and Willa Cather). The vocabulary they used and their style are much closer to those of today.

[florazheng]

Thanks for your recommendation again.

Would you please list some articles/ works in your English textbooks from your grammar school to high school for me?

I would like to read these at first since they are must-reading for you Americans. I hope it will include poems, essays, novels and others. Don’t consider whether they are contemporary English or not. I will try to tackle them.

For example, the poem named “My Luve Is Like A Red, Red, Rose” by Robert Burns who was born in 18th Century. There are some archaic English words, such as Luve, art thou, thee, in it but if I miss out this poem, I think I will regret.

And it will be great if you can tell me which of them are for grammar students or for high school student. I prefer starting from those for grammar students. Needless to say, they are easier, aren’t they? And those works in original must be written by native English writers regardless their nationalities. I wouldn’t like to read translated versions, even those were translated by native English speakers. if so, I prefer reading them in Chinese.

Thanks a million!

[skylee]

Usually students read Jane Austen and Shakespear at schools, I think. I like Jane Austen a LOT but hers are old-fashioned.

Flora, would you like to try the "House of Mirth" written by Edith Wharton? This is one of my very favourite books, and I cried every time (without exception, and that was many times) I read it. You can download it from there -> http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/284

[gato]

Would you please list some articles/ works in your English textbooks from your grammar school to high school for me?

I would like to read these at first since they are must-reading for you Americans. I hope it will include poems' date=' essays, novels and others. Don’t consider whether they are contemporary English or not. I will try to tackle them.[/quote']

The US has a decentralized education system. Roughly speaking, every county controls its own curriculum, including the readling list. Very few cities have 重点 (selective admission) schools that you have in China. Thus, even within the same school, students in the same grade will attend different classes depending on their background. For example, there might be three or four different classes in literature that a 9th grader could take. Therefore, there's not really a standard set of books that everyone would have read.

Here's a reading list for 6th-12th graders from a public school districts in North Carolina.

http://www.scsnc.org/curriculum/reading_lists/

Of what I can remember, we read the following in my classes in high school:

9th grade:

"East of Eden" by John Steinbeck; "Twelve Angry Men" (play); Lord of the Flies by William Golding; Julies Caesar by Shakespeare; "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald

10th grade (I had a one-semester class on American literature)

"Our Town" (play) by Thorton Wilder; "The Scarlet Letter" by Hawthorne; various essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson; "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller; "Billy Budd" (short story) by Hermann Melville; "The Fall of House of Usher" and other stories by Edgar Allan Poe; poems by Emily Dickinson, Longfellow, and others; "Adventure of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain; "Spoon River Anthology" (epitaph poems) by Edgar Lee Masters

11th grade (I had a class on British lit)

"Wuthering Heights" by Emily Bronte; "Macbeth" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream" by Shakespeare; poems by Matthew Arnold, Keats, Shelley; "Jude the Obscure" by Thomas Hardy; "Canterbury Tales" by Chaucer; "Pigmalion" by George Bernard Shaw

12th grade:

"A Streetcar Named Desire" by Tennessee Williams; "Hamlet" by Shakespeare; "Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley; Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse, "Tess of D'Uberville" by Thomas Hardy; poems by George Herbert, John Donne, T.S. Eliot; "A Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood; "Oedipus" (play) by Sophocles; "A Doll's House" (play) by Henrik Ibsen; "Beloved" by Toni Morrison; "Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man" by James Joyce

[in_lab]

Although we don't all read the same books in high school, they are pretty similar. My list wouldn't look too different from gato's. Lots of Shakespeare, John Steinbeck, and Charles Dickens. And if you look at short stories, I think our lists would be even more similar. You can't get through high school without reading Poe. I think I read "The telltale heart" in 3 of my 4 years of high school.

Looking over the list of books, I would recommend "The house on mango street" by Sandra Cisneros. It's short, very simple, and very interesting. But it's too contemporary to be a book that everyone has read.

[bhchao]

gato, have you read A Separate Peace? Besides that novel, my classmates and I also read some of the novels that you listed in high school, including 12 Angry Men, The Great Gatsby, To Kill A Mockingbird, Lord of the Flies, Death of a Salesman, The Scarlet Letter, Pygmalion, The Crucible, and Catcher in the Rye.

[gato]

gato, have you read A Separate Peace? Besides that novel, my classmates and I also read some of the novels that you listed in high school, including 12 Angry Men, The Great Gatsby, To Kill A Mockingbird, Lord of the Flies, Death of a Salesman, The Scarlet Letter, Pygmalion, The Crucible, and Catcher in the Rye.

I got a copy of "A Separate Peace" back in high school after a friend recommended it, but I never got around to it. I guess there is more overlap in the American high school curriculum than I expected. I'm curious what our Brit and Aussie friends on the board read for their high school classes, just for comparison, and also other places where English is the language of the classroom.

[elizaberth]

wait a minute....

isn't this topic under 'chinese culture', why are we discussing english books???

[skylee]

I am now reading "千年繁華：京都的街巷人生", which I have borrowed from the library. This is a beautifully written (and translated) account of the author's love for and life in Kyoto.

About this book ->

http://www.books.com.tw/exep/prod/booksfile.php?item=0010238738

http://blog.freetimegears.com.tw/mrsturtle/archives/000649.html

And I am going to Kyoto next week.

[florazheng]

Hi Skylee & Gato,

Thank you very much for your kind recommendation again. I have printed out the book names that you recommend. I will try to read them in the future.

And Skylee, I would like to read House of Mirth once I finish reading Adventures of Huckleberry Finn because I am quite curious why you were moved by it.

Sorry, didn’t response in time because I felt a little blue. Now, I’m fine. Thanks a lot, again.

Cheers,

Flora:-)

[elizaberth]

oh i see...

now reading a book about Jewish Wisdom, bought from a bookfair,' You Tai Ge Yan.

Wow!!

[Lu]

Am reading sanwen by Yin Lichuan, the book's name is Zai shufu yixie 在舒服一些, and ironically I bought it in Taipei and never found it in Beijing. I never thought I could like sanwen, I usually prefer novels, but I like these. And I can follow most of what Yin is saying, even though I didn't see most of the movies she talks about.

Flora, maybe you can try some Hemingway, his writing is interesting and not hard. And I personally like Fay Weldon's work a lot, The Life and Loves of a She Devil is one of my favorite books, and not difficult either.

[Song You Shen]

Right now I'm reading "Outlaws of the Marsh", i'm still in the introduction... so don't spoil it for me! ;)

Youshen

[skylee]

I am reading 東亞三國的近現代史.