We've rounded four of the most highly expected book releases of November all available now to purchase or preorder on Amazon.
 | "Ready Player Two: A Novel" by Ernest Cline (available November 24, starting at $14.99; amazon.com) Ready for a little escapism in the time of Covid-19? Dive into Cline's sequel (续集) "Ready Player One" (which was adapted by Steven Spielberg into a hit movie) to take a thrill ride of a science-fiction adventure through a virtual universe packed with mysteries. |
 | "Moonflower Murders" by Anthony Horowitz (starting at $14.99; amazon.com) Fans will stay up late reading this suspenseful spin on British crime fiction. In this tale, Ryeland, who has moved to a Greek island to run a hotel, gets caught up in the disappearance of a visiting couple's daughter. Keep the tea kettle handy — this one will be hard to put down. |
 | "The Best of Me" by David Sedaris (starting at $15.99; amazon.com) When you want a good old-fashioned laugh, turn to this new collection of Sedaris' funniest and most heartwarming essays and fictional stories written over the last 25-plus years. |
 | "Fortune and Glory: A Stephanie Plum Novel" by Janet Evanovich (starting at $14.99; amazon.com) Fans won't want to miss its 27th installment, taking heroine Stephanie Plum on a dangerous treasure hunt. The story introduces the character of Plum's new enemy, Gabriela Rose. Pace yourself: With this novel, you're in for a wild ride. |
Thomas Hardy was born at Higher Bockhampton, Dorset, on June 2, 1840, where his father worked as a builder. From his father he gained an appreciation of music, and from his mother an appetite for learning and the delights of the countryside about his rural home.
Due to his poor health, Hardy did not start school until he was eight. At 16, Hardy helped his father with architectural drawings and then started to work for architects. Later he moved to London and began writing poems, but his works were rejected by publishers. In 1870, he was sent to work in Cornwall. There he met his future wife Emma Gifford, who encouraged him in his writing.
Hardy published his first novel Desperate Remedies in 1871, to universal disinterest. But the following year Under the Greenwood Tree brought Hardy popular praise for the first time. As with most of his fictional works, this novel incorporated real places around Dorset into the plot, including the village school that Hardy attended. After Under the Greenwood Tree came a serialized novel A Pair of Blue Eves. Once more Hardy drew upon real life, and the novel mirrors his romance with Emma.
Hardy followed this with Far From the Madding Crowd, set in Puddletown, near his birthplace. This novel finally netted Hardy the success that enabled him to give up his architectural practice and concentrate only on writing.
The Hardys lived in London for a short time, then in Yeovil, then in Sturminster Newton, which Hardy described as "idyllic (田园诗般的)". It was at Sturminster Newton that he penned Return of the Native, one of his most enduring (持久的) works.
In 1887, Hardy published The Woodlander, a story concerning an honest woodsman in a small village. Then in 1891 one of his best works, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, came out, which was set primarily in the English countryside during the 19th century.
Tess excited interest, but his next work, Jude the Obscure (1896), threw Hardy into a storm of controversy (争议), which made him turn away from fiction and focused on poetry for the rest of his life.
Lonely retired people can now buy "grandkids-on-demand" at the press of a button. Using a new app named Papa, the elderly can call on young people to come and visit them and keep them company.
Elderly people, who may have lost touch with their own family, can also ask their rented grandchildren to do chores and drive them around. Papa, which is based in Miami, Florida, is available as a mobile app and a customer telephone line for those without access to a smartphone.
Papa's representatives will then provide a free consultation with the person to see how it can pair college students with them. The app costs the elderly citizens $15 an hour and the Papa Pals receive at least $10 per visit. And the exact sum is calculated by an algorithm (算法) and varies based on the type of trip undertaken by the Papa Pal.
According to Andrew Parker the founder and chief executive of the companionship service, most Papa Pals make on average between $20 to $30 per visit. The average visit lasts around three hours.
Although designed originally for helping old people, Mr Parker believes it could also provide services to other weak groups. The entrepreneur has also targeted babysitting and caring for adults or children with autism as potential future expansion projects within the app. Papa also provides somewhat of a digital education, assisting the elderly set up Netflix or video chat with their grandchildren.
So far, the use of underwater cameras has been limited. Some must be stuck to power wires. Others rely on batteries, which don't tend to last long. Such limits have kept scientists from exploring most of the ocean world. But now researchers have found a way around these problems — underwater cameras can get a new power source from sound.
The camera has two sensors on the bottom. Each is made of multiple layers of a piezoelectric material. When sound travels through the water, it creates waves of pressure, which cause the material to vibrate (振动). And the material changes these vibrations into electrical energy and stores it in a capacitor. Once the capacitor has enough energy, it turns on the camera and takes a picture. Then, it lets the second sensor tap into more sound energy to send the picture. In this way, the sensors not only power the camera, but broadcast the data carrying its images.
Any sound can power it — from swimming fish to a passing ship. One of the sensors can focus on collecting energy for the camera while the other focuses on communication. How quickly the system takes to recharge depends on how loud and close the sound is. In a quiet setting, the camera will take about 10 to 12 seconds. With improved sensors, the camera will charge in less than a second by using sounds from more than 100 meters away.
To record an image, the camera flashes a series of red, blue and green lights. The system then combines what it sees into a single color photo. To communicate, the camera has an internal switch, which controls whether a sensor uses incoming sound for broadcasting. That switch is like a mirror being moved into and out of position. When that switch is in position, the system will use some sound to carry the photo's digital data to a receiver. That receiver picks up the camera's broadcast and assembles the data into an image. And then the undersea photo shoot is done.
Napping (小睡) at midday keeps afternoon sleepiness away. Shortly after lunch, silence fills the whole office building, for the employees are now taking a nap break. An unspoken agreement is shared that each deserves a personal napping space without disturbance.
Liu Zongyuan, a famous poet in the Tang Dynasty, once impressed us by a vivid description of a joyful and leisurely nap time. Napping at noon might date from the late Eastern Han Dynasty. According to the story "San Gu Mao Lu", Zhuge Kongming was in a sound nap when Liu Bei came visiting him for the third time.
Some researchers interpret the Chinese napping habit in the light of eating habits. Chinese people in the north eat wheaten food primarily and those in the south rely on rice. Biology tells us that wheaten food and rice contain a lot of glucose (葡萄糖). Normally we Chinese get on a full stomach after lunch so the glucose-rich Chinese diet raises the level of blood glucose.
These explanations are seemingly reasonable. Even days of conversation to Western diet, instead of wheaten food or rice, cannot ease my post-lunch laziness, hence a nap at a quiet place is desperate.
Noon nap occurs everywhere: customers napping on a sofa or Simmons, park-goers on a bench or on the lawn, are frequently noticed on newspapers and the Internet. Those who nap in public places embarrass passers-by, which is not socially tolerable. On the contrary, a self-disciplined person preferring to nap in a private space is regarded as a napper with decency.
A. It leads to sleepiness.
B. They, however, do not work on me.
C. It casts its spell on summer days particularly.
D. Noon-time napping is a kind of self-protection.
E. Napping is also a cultural behavior with a long history.
F. Be that as it may, your napping places make a difference.
G. Otherwise, only a lie-in in the morning could help me get enough energy for the whole afternoon.
My dad is a kind gentle man with few words. But the words were always appropriate to the situation I was facing.
As a teen, when I 1 with making sense of the world around me, he taught me the right 2 of the world. When I was offered the chance to be a manager of an organization as an undergraduate student, I asked him for advice 3 he was a senior manager of a large company. His advice was simple, "Only when you become the manager can you have a vision for how you can be 4 with managing an organization within your power; management isn't about power and it's about5 " I learned what I needed was not only to be 6 for my team but also to have leading ability.
My dad is 86 now, living on his own. He keeps a positive attitude despite the 7 that aging brings. Although we live quite far away from each other, we talk daily on the phone, and he shares the 8 of my young family. As I tell him how we're 9 cycling or on a trip or out to play tennis, now his typical response is, "Do it while you can." This is very important. We can't 10 the future, which is always hard to be aware of.
Dad trusted me, and 11 me each time I was sad or 12 . He rarely "lectured me". His patience and 13 have been true gifts in my life. Whenever I doubt my ability and my motivation, I 14 recall his valuable advice, "Do it while you can. Seize the day and 15 it to the fullest." It's enough to "just get me started".
A black slate (石板), an alloy steel needle and decades of practice are Li Yahua needs to create the perfect Huihe stone shadow carving work of art. With her left hand (gentle) leaning against the mirror-like stone to support the heavy chisel (凿子) she's holding in her right hand, the artist creates a black-and-white landscape by intensively chiseling dots in various sizes and density on the stone.
(difference) from traditional Chinese art types that emphasize the beauty of lines, stone shadow carving highlights the size and (deep) of dots.
"We use an alloy steel needle to chisel white dots to create images on a polished and smooth black slate," Li explained, adding the pressure (use) to chisel them was the key to getting the carving right.
"On an A4-paper-size black slate, we need to chisel about 100 million dots (create) an image," she continued, adding it would take 7 to 20 days to complete the work depending on its level of complexity.
Born into a family of stone carvers, stone and alloy steel needles (be) Li's best friends since childhood and the sound of chisel (knock) on the slate is the soundtrack to her life. 56-year-old has devoted nearly 40 years to the craft. For her, shadow carving is about preserving history, culture and art, recording the stories of the times.
My mom and I were in Florida during her spring break from teaching middle school. As an anxious four-year-old, I had asked my mom several times if the Easter Bunny would be able to find us. She assured me there would be eggs.
On Easter morning, my mom and I discovered that the Easter Bunny had left eggs on the hotel's main lawn (草坪) for all the kids. As we walked toward the group of adults and kids waiting for instructions, I began sizing up the competition. All of the kids were much bigger than me. It wasn't looking good. The manager in charge of the hunt explained the rules. My heart began racing as I watched some of the other kids get into a pose to start.
When the manager yelled "GO!", all kids rushed across the lawn, running from tree to tree looking for the plastic Easter eggs filled with candy. I raced to the closest tree but did not find any eggs. I ran to a nearby sandpit hoping there would be an egg hidden there. But in vain. I looked across the lawn and saw the other kids holding up their plastic eggs and knew my chance of finding even one egg was decreasing by the second.
Just then my mom pointed out a palm tree across the lawn. "Look There's One!" A shiny blue plastic egg was resting against the base of the tree. I looked up at my mom in excitement. However, she was staring in the direction of another mom, whose son was pulling candy out of an egg. The two moms were looking at one another and then at what appeared to be the last Easter egg. I had never seen my very petite (娇小的) mom before that day. She had been born with weak knees, due to an issue with her legs, and when she was in elementary school she had worn special shoes to correct a foot problem.
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As their staring with each other continued, I took off toward the Easter egg.
My mom, delighted at her victory, walked back toward me.
