6 English Reading Recommandations Master English Conversation

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hi everybody welcome back to english

topics my name is Alisha and today I am

joined again by I’m Davey

welcome back Davey thank you so in this

episode we’re going to be giving some

reading recommendations so these are a

few ideas that you can use in your

English reading so the idea here is just

kind of to remind people that although

we focus a lot on speaking and listening

on this channel reading is also an

important and essential part of learning

a language so these are a couple of

ideas if you’re struggling to find

something to read or if you just want

something new to read maybe you can try

one of the things that will suggest

today I hope all right

I have I guess I’ll start because I

chose one of my items is actually quite

general and this was something that I

more advanced readers higher-level

English readers and that is to read

something by Ernest Hemingway very

famous Nobel prize-winning I think he

wasn’t no book yes he won the Nobel

Prize in Literature Nobel prize-winning

writer Ernest Hemingway who was writing

in the middle of the 20th century he

died in 1962 or something like that and

I recommend Hemingway because he

famously has a very simple writing style

even though he’s a very well-regarded

well respected American writer he wrote

in a very simple way he used very very

simple syntax so it’s easy to understand

his writing vocabulary might be

difficult but it’s easy to to read us

our short story of his or a shorter

novel of his and get the idea get the

gist of the story mm-hmm

and he wrote a lot of he’s famous for

certain novels like the old man in the

sea for Whom the Bell Tolls but he also

wrote a lot of short stories and so

that’s a good place to start you could

buy a collection of his short stories or

find some online I’m sure you can find

some of his like the Nick Adam stories

or other stories online to try reading

for free and that’s a good place to

start and if you like what you read then

you can read more so like I said he he

wrote novels and he also wrote a lot of

short stories and I don’t know if I have

one specific favorite short story but he

has a series of our collection of his

stories that are called the Nick Adams

stories because they all feature one

character named Nick Adams and the first

Nick Adam story is when Nick Adams is a

young boy and he’s you know five or six

or seven or eight years old and we see

Nick Adams kind of grow up through these

stories and a lot of these stories are

also about fishing Nick Adams growing up

in Illinois I think which is all which

is also where Hemingway

from and stories about nickadams kind of

just going fishing and I grew up in a

fishing family and so I really liked

those stories and they’re they’re simple

they’re easy to understand they’re just

stories about a young guy going fishing

it might sound really boring but they’re

very beautifully written

they’re very nice stories they’re easy

to understand read much Hemingway I read

some here and there in high school sure

but I think in my case I was always more

drawn towards like the fantasy and

science fiction genre sure and so that

always held more appeal but there were

some authors and I think from around the

same time period as well the gained

notoriety for that style that you’re

describing that it was like simple

situations and simple phrasing but like

an ability to like create these just

kind of picturesque images hmm like who

wrote Walden Walden was thorough

thorough I remember that it like that’s

the one about the guy who just lives in

the forest look it’s a journal by

himself yeah like but that’s one that

really stood out to me to like you there

was nothing necessarily complex about

that story like on the surface but that

was one that was like hmm it made you

think about just like the pace of

everyday life and it wasn’t so difficult

to read like we were reading it in high

school so you know there are a lot of

writers I think yeah that have something

similar I was also thinking when you

were talking about Kerouac as well Jack

Kerouac did travel stories but there’s

stream-of-consciousness a lot of them

like on the road is very stream of

consciousness

sentences that go on for a page I see I

see I was thinking in terms of material

in terms of topic sure and in terms of

like vocabulary use since and so on so

but that doesn’t make sense because they

are on a ramble II yes here what might

be hard so in general that’s perhaps

like a high school reading list yeah

absolutely well I shouldn’t say that

actually that’s not true

depends what everything that’s like

Homer as well like Iliad stay away from

Faulkner hmm what else is that you know

did you think things are gonna be hard I

like walking every but he’s not Annie

that is not an easy author to read I’m

trying to learn kind of like in in that

same vein then sort of those kind of

adventure ish stories yeah William

Golding’s Lord of the Flies that one was

kind of like it’s an exciting adventure

story for sure it gets dark as well too

and there’s a movie mm-hmm Oh is there

there is yeah okay all right well anyway

those are those are some things that

stood out to me from my high school list

look I don’t know what people are

reading in high school these days I’m

kind of curious a lot of the same

there’s a lot of things in the Canon a

lot of historical stuff too I remember

reading the plague that’s not cheery not

chuimu that’s right French you’re good

at that you’re good at remembering

authors I am NOT I was a lit major but

oh yeah that’s a dark story about the

the plague the Black Plague existed a

happy times and murder my man died today

maybe it was yesterday oh man that’s the

first line ah I don’t remember I don’t

remember these things anyway I’ll go to

something that came to me because I was

thinking about adolescent level books

actually sure because I feel as a

learner a second language learner

adolescent level books are nice because

it’s like they’re not too hard and

they’re not too easy and the subject

matter often has a little bit of like

drama to it so anyway I chose two things

here actually Nancy Drew

and thirty boys no I never read

baby-sitters club actually I was never

he’s just never into that sort of thing

but I did read Nancy Drew so I included

both of these here basically both of

these Nancy Nancy Drew is the story of a

young girl she’s eight like she’s a

detective that’s the story here the

Hardy Boys they are two boys their last

name is Hardy I think they’re brothers

yeah of course the brothers are evil

they they are detectives also so these

two it was like a detective series led

by a girl and a detective series led by

boys and I thought these could be nice

because these are books these are huge

huge like so many books a lot of books

in both of these series and when I was

thinking about the genre of a mystery

story I was thinking about the different

types of grammar that get used in these

stories like stuff that you might not

use so much in everyday conversations

like he would have been able to or he

might have been able to or then we could

maybe

like sort of these weird future

possibility or past possibility sorts of

things that can get discussed in these

mystery stories but they’re made for

like teenagers essentially but that

doesn’t mean that the stories aren’t

interesting I remember really enjoying

like Nancy Drew when I was a teenager

did you ever read these I think I tried

reading one or two Hardy Boys books when

I was a kid and I didn’t really get into

them I see but I did similar to those

kinds of books I really liked an author

called John Bel Air’s who wrote similar

kind of like kind of mystery books for

young readers at the mansion in the mist

and these sort of weird kind of spooky

baroque kind of mystery books for

children okay

that were really good so John Bel Air’s

I recommend he’s a nice get out there

too

did you read those choose your own

adventures yeah oh that’s a great one

these are really fun but the one thing

that I would caution about with those

books is those books are often written

in second person meaning the subject you

you those are kind of a rare style of

book in that respect that’s true when

it’s a what’s called what we’re talking

about is a choose-your-own-adventure

I had the Goosebumps series when I was

little it’s like scary stories but when

the book is a choose your own adventure

book it means you the reader are the

focus of the story and so as you read

you have to make decisions in the story

if you choose a you turn to this page if

you choose B you turn to a different

page and you read what happens to you

next so you are choosing your story as

the character in the story so the way

the story is written is different from

typical stories so the focus in the

stories you go to the haunted house

right you see a ghost what do you do

next and that’s not very typical not the

way most stories are they’re very

interactive and very fun and also very

simple because you’re reading just a few

sentences per page and then making a

decision so they’re easy to read they

are so as long as you can keep that in

mind it’s called second person the way

those stories are written but those are

fun for sure absolutely

I always got scared I would I would hold

like the different pages and like yes I

died in the story of course I didn’t

like to lose but there’s actually that’s

a good another nice thing about those

books is there they you you will read

them again and again because you want to

discover the different possibilities and

so rereading something it gets easier to

read and it’s good practice for you yeah

yeah so choose your own adventure books

yeah what was the series that you read

up I don’t remember I they were it was I

remember it was like an adventure series

sort of like Indiana it wasn’t Indiana

Jones but it was that style of

adventures like you’re a treasure hunter

in the jungle stuff like that

I remember reading ones like that I see

hey I’m not sure what other ones there

are only answers I’m sure there’s a lot

yeah there those are very good nice

video okay alright what’s your next one

my last one is also maybe more for

advanced or intermediate learners and

it’s the New York Times and I’ll bear

with me I know you might be thinking oh

that’s the

very difficult but I recommend the New

York Times for a few reasons one it’s

always nice to stay up on current events

and reading about the news and current

events in English things that are

happening now in English you’ll be able

to then go talk about them in English

the second reason that I’ve recommended

the New York Times is similar to your

first recommendation you can find

something to read in the New York Times

if you don’t want to read the news read

the Travel section read the the food

section you know there’s different

sections of the New York Times that you

can read based on your interest and the

third reason I’ve chosen the New York

Times is because the New York Times

online has a very cool feature you can

double click on any word that you don’t

understand and it will give you the

definition so for learners it’s very

useful so if you’re worried about you

know understanding all the vocabulary in

an article or improving your vocabulary

this is a very very easy way to do it

you don’t need to sit there with the

dictionary open while you read you just

need to double click on the word a

little pop-up window will tell you the

definition you can close the window and

keep reading so it’s very very useful

for vocabulary building that’s cool

that’s way cool and as an extra bonus

for extra advanced learners you can try

the New York Times crossword puzzle Oh

as you can crossword puzzles are great

vocabulary practice like games I guess

it is essentially a game yeah New York

Times the like it’s infamously difficult

to get harder through the week

it’s Sunday crossword is the most the

most difficult yeah I went through a

phase a couple years doing the New York

Times crossword puzzle every day I want

to I wanted to get good at it and I

could complete through Wednesday pretty

easily Thursday maybe I never really

made it past Thursday Friday I couldn’t

really do weekends were like forget it

so for reference a crossword puzzle is a

word game so a crossword puzzle it’s

like a grid of lines and columns and

there are empty boxes and each

line or each column there’s a word hint

there’s a clue about which word fits in

the boxes so you have to choose and

spell correctly the word so you might

need to erase the word or you might need

to try a few different words but it’s a

test of your spelling for one it’s a

test of your vocabulary too and for more

difficult crossword puzzles it can be a

test of your knowledge of other subjects

so it’s not just words it’s also history

and science and literature like there

are so many different things that go

into the clues for crossword puzzles so

those are really really good ways to

test your knowledge they’re difficult

even for native speaker absolutely yeah

totally difficult so if you want to try

definitely Google for some English

crossword puzzles you can search for

easy ones also yes and they make

crossword puzzles for English learners

and a lot of those are graded to a

specific level or they’re on a specific

topic you know you could do a crossword

puzzle on the ocean and learn vocabulary

related to the ocean for example so

there’s a lot of different crosswords

that you could find you know at for your

level mm-hmm yeah so that could be a fun

way to practice reading and to practice

spelling as well it’s so fun stuff all

right so those are a couple of different

reading recommendations there’s quite

quite a lot to choose from but I think

as long as you’re interested in what

you’re reading like that’s maybe the

hardest part at least for me yeah

absolutely

you know just find a thing you like find

something that’s interesting and you

will stay motivated to read it mhm

agreed agreed are you reading anything

now I am reading something now I am

reading a book by David Mitchell who is

a very wonderful author who is maybe

most famous for Cloud Atlas huh they

made it which they made into movies I

saw and I’m reading on numbered no what

am i reading not number nine dream I

bought two books of his recently I

brought in them number nine dream and

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with something’s black swan' green

that’s what it’s called

black swuan Green is the book I’m

reading now by David Mitchell I see it

is a good book cool

I’m reading uh I’ve gone back into

history I told you about this the other

day I’m reading letters from a stoic at

the moment by Seneca the old stoic

philosopher for kind of just interesting

essays showing off advice life advice so

I’m not showing off the common book yeah

I’ve got I’ve got Seneca on my

nightstand as well I don’t read the

things that you read so it’s to show you

know everybody has something behind

something you like

yeah and read it absolutely absolutely

that’s the point here all right so those

are quite a few recommendations some

ideas but if you like the video which we

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channel if you have not already also

come and check us out at English class

101.com you can find some other reading

resources on the website there so don’t

forget to stop by thanks very much for

watching this episode of English topics

and we will see you again next time bye

bye

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