Reading Help, Shakespeare and Culture You Monkeys!

In the midst of all this football, it might be a good idea to return to some culture....

Reading Practise:

First Chapters:

This website has the first chapters of various new books for you to read. It might be useful to check out a new English language book, before trying to read it....

http://www.nytimes.com/pages/books/chapters/index.html

...or it may just serve as a shorter way to practise reading a little.


Books designed for foreign speakers:

This ridiculously long link below will take you to a list of English books that have been simplified for foreign speakers. Each book should have the appropriate level in brackets after it (if you're not sure which level is applicable to you, ask me).

http://www.amazon.co.uk/english-Language-Readers-as-Foreign-Books/s/ref=sr_nr_n_10?ie=UTF8&rs=714256&keywords=english&bbn=714266&rnid=714256&rh=n%3A266239%2Ck%3Aenglish%2Cn%3A275738%2Cn%3A714256%2Cn%3A714266

You may not want to buy via amazon.co.uk, but you can use the ISBN numbers etc to order the books from somewhere else.


The Big Read

For more ideas of what to read... A few years back, the BBC did a survey to find the UK's favourite book. Here are the results:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/bigread/top100.shtml

Curiously, my favourite book, 'The Mega Monkey Madness Manual' (a 100 page collection of hilarious monkey pictures) did not make the list! Perhaps it was number 101...

Finally.... The Bard:

'What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action, how like an angel! In apprehension, how like a god! The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals; and yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me; no, nor woman neither...'

Hamlet, Act Two, Scene Two.