Содержание texts:

The Hard Way (After M. Rodgers) 4

Stepmother (After J. Greenwood) 6

A Note About Witches (After R. Dahl) 8

The School-Teacher (After A. Croniri) 10

An Explosion at Night (After A. Croniri) 12

Adventure (After J. P. Priestley) 14

Under the Deck Awnings. Part I (After J. London) 16

Under the Deck Awnings. Part II (After J. London) 18

How We Kept Mother's Day (After S. LeacocK) 20

Looking Back on Eighty Years (After S. Maugham) 21

The Cop and the Anthem (After O. Henry) 22

The Problem of Thor Bridge (After A. Conan Doyle) — 24

A Sound of Thunder (After R. Bradbury)- 26

A Name on the Wall (After S. Marmorsteiri) 28

The Model Millionaire (After O. Wilde) 30

Topics:

The English Language

English today 32

Hot Issues

Life in the 21st century 34

Computer revolution 36

Will we live in space? -38

Our planet Earth 40

Can we live longer? 42

Mass Media

Mass media 44

TV or not TV? 46

Newspapers 48

The British press 50

About Myself

My family 52

My flat 54

My working day 56

My friend 58

My school 60

How I went shopping 62

My plans for the future ; 64

My meals 66

At the doctor's 68

Hobbies and Pastimes

Hobbies 70

My friend's hobby 72

Travelling 74

My last summer holidays 76

My favourite season 78

Countries and Cities

Great Britain 80

Climate and weather in Great Britain 82

London 84

The USA 87

Washington, DC 90

The Russian Federation — 92

Moscow 95

St Petersburg 98

Literature and Arts

Libraries 100

William Shakespeare 102

Anton Chekhov 105

Agatha Christie 107

Ernest Hemingway 109

My favourite book — 111

Tretyakov Gallery 113

Valentin Serov 115

Isaac Levitan 117

Mozart 119

My favourite singer 121

The birth of the "seventh art" 123

David Duchovny 126

Science and Scientists

Albert Einstein 128

Andrei Sakharov 130

Will we live to see the first cloned human? 132

Sports

Olympic Games 134

Sports in Great Britain : 136

Sports in Russia 138

Customs and Traditions

Holidays in Great Britain 140

Holidays in Russia 142

Supplementary reader:

The English Language

The future of English 145

Some facts about English 146

Hot Issues

What will our life be like? 147

Chips are changing the world 147

What does the future hold? 148

Why are we so excited about the Internet? 148

We may have no choice 149

Arthur Clarke predicts 150

The Earth is our home 150

What shall we do with our packed planet? 152

"Smog" was invented in Britain 152

Do we live to eat? 153

There is a danger hanging over your life 154

Game of chance 154

Mass Media

What is news? 155

American press 155

Newspaper wars 156

Hooked on the Net 156

What kind of viewer are you? 157

Hobbies and Pastimes

What is a hobby? 158

Video games 158

The future of travelling 159

Countries and Cities

Scotland: the land of lochs and legends 160

What does the Queen do? 161

The new face of London 161

The Tower of London 162

St Paul's Cathedral 163

London's East End 164

Madam Tussaud's 164

The White House 165

New York 166

The Statue of Liberty 168

From the history of New York 168

Australia 169

Canada 170

Some facts about Moscow 171

Literature and Arts

The future of the book — if it has a future 172

On books and reading 172

The Globe Theatre —173

Robert Burns 174

Mark Twain 174

Michelangelo 175

William Hogarth 176

Abstract art 176

Pablo Picasso 177

Beethoven — 178

Theatre and cinema in Britain 179

Steven Spielberg: movie wizard 180

Leonardo DiCaprio 180

Science and Scientists

Great inventions 182

The gene revolution 183

Miniature revolution 183

Sports

In-line roller-skating 184

Snowboarding 184

Surfs up! 185

Sport and competition in Britain 186

Baseball 187

Customs and Traditions

Traditions and customs in Britain 188

Time for tea 188

British character 189

Halloween 190

April Fool's Day 190

Holidays in the USA 191

Happy birthday, America 193

Columbus Day 194