It’s the end of September, and you know what that means – some book and article recommendations! If you are new to the blog, you might want to check out the master index of articles. I recommend starting with the newer articles as they are less likely to have dead links.
We’ll start today with some short articles. This month I read the July issue of “Science News” and spotted a few interesting stories, including:
- Gray wolves scare deer from roads, reducing dangerous collisions is a nice short article about animal behavior. It could help you prepare for speaking question number three.
- The mere sight of illness may kick-start a canary’s immune system is a longer article about animal behavior.
- Something mysteriously wiped out about 90 percent of sharks 19 million years ago is an article about an unexplained event that could be the top of an integrated writing passage.
New clues suggest people reached the Americas around 30,000 years ago is the sort of “early human history” article I always love to include in this column. It might prepare you for the reading section of the TOEFL test.
I also found a few longer articles in the June issue of National Geographic. They include:
- The Tree at the Bottom of the World, which is about an expedition to find the Earth’s southern-most tree. It’s in Argentina.
Beekeepers vs. Mennonites: Two traditional cultures clash in Mexico, which is about the “clash” between Maya beekeepers and Mennonite farmers in Mexico.
I also read a few books! First up, I read Alain de Botton’s “A Week at the Airport,” which is a very short book (barely longer than a magazine article) about a week he spent living at London’s Heathrow Airport. The book mixes his observations of the everyday goings-on of the airport with the philosophical musing’s he’s known for. It isn’t exactly “TOEFL English” but it is a fun read if you are looking for non-fiction to keep your reading skills sharp. You can find it at the Open Library or on Amazon.
Meanwhile, I’ve continued to stay home and enjoy travels only in the literary sense. I read Colin Thubron’s Journey Into Cyprus. Again, I warn you that his stuff is hard to read, but he remains my favorite living travel writer, so I’ll keep mentioning his books in this column! This one describes a 900 kilometer walk he took through the country just before the partition of the country. While this is the fourth of Thubron’s books I’ve mentioned here, I think it is his first perfect travel book, and the first written in the style he is known for today. You can find it at the Open Library or on Amazon.
That’s all for this month. But I’ve already found some fun stuff to mention at the end of October. Stay tuned.