Books and reading

In my bookcase they stand and stand, Tattered, yellowed with pages torn,

These friends of mine that understand, They are my friends, all ages worn;

Bound in wisdom that is profound Some are soiled and by tears are marked,

From pages old the world around. These old, old friends, each patriarch.

They are my friends; they serve me well

And often in my search will tell

Some little thing I want to know

To guide me on, to help me grow.

Gertrude Rudberg

Topical vocabulary

1. Categorisation: Children’s and adult’s books; travel books and biography; romantic and historical novels; crime/thrillers; detective stories; war/adventure; science fiction/fantasy; liter­ary fiction and genre fiction; non-fiction; pulp fiction.

2. Books and their parts: paperback and hardback; binding; cover; spine; jacket; title; epigraph; preface; the contents list; fly leaf; bookplate; blurb; a beautifully printed book; a tome bound in leather/with gilt edges; a volume with a broken bind­ing; a book with dense print/with loose pages; a well-thumbed book.

3. Reading habits: to form a reading habit early in life; to read silently/incessantly/greedily/laboriously; to read curled up in a chair; to read a child/oneself to sleep; to make good bed-time reading; to be lost/absorbed in a book; to devour books; to dip into/glance over/pore over/thumb through a book; to browse through newspapers and periodicals; to scan/skim a magazine; a bookworm; an avid/alert/keen reader.

4. Library facilities: holdings, collections, reading rooms and reference sections; the subject /author /title /on-line catalogue; the enquiry desk; computer assisted reference service; to borrow /renew /return /loan books, CDs and video tapes; rare books; books on open reserve, books (not) available from a local library, magazine / reference/ science section in a library, to keep abreast of the developments in (electronics), to keep books that are overdue; books vulnerable to theft; a borrower, a library card, a request card, to get / send reminder notices, to suspend one's member­ship; to be banned from the library.

5. Appreciation of books and authors: to favour modern/ classical authors, a book that is certain to delight, to have a good / bad / high / low / opinion of …, a trend to read relatively more non-fiction, a widespread indifference to (poetry), to get the fullest possible value from the book, to get the whole pleasure from, to applaud or condemn a book, to pass judgments, to praise unreservedly;

Positive attributes: absorbing, adult, amusing, exciting, hilarious, moralistic, entertaining, lively, witty, delightful, fascinating, gripping, outrageous, profound, whimsical, brilliant, powerful, wise.

Negative attributes: controversial, dense, depressing, dirty, disturbing, dull, boring, clumsy, rambling, heavy-handed, superficial, pretentious, wordy, outrageous, nasty, obscene, whimsical, mediocre, lacking in originality, pompous, sentimental, repetitive.

1. a) Read the text and single out the information about different types of books.