老師:如果同學們想要提高自己的英語水平,就要盡可能多地閱讀英語原版書,這樣才能……
(話音未落)
同學A:原版書太難讀了,有些連單詞都不認識,更別提看懂里面的內(nèi)容了。
同學B:這種書我通常只翻幾頁,然后就沒有然后了。
同學C:我甚至都不知道該選哪個類型的書。
當今的英語原版書雖種類繁多,但質(zhì)量參差不齊,想要選擇適合自己閱讀的原版書并非易事。不過別擔心,權(quán)威BBC將為你推薦10本書,文體類型各有不同,但都值得細細品味。以下10本英語原版書,你看過其中的哪本呢?
1. The Willpower Instinct
凱利·麥格尼格爾《自控力》
Our ability to control our attention, mood, appetite and behavior will greatly affect our health, financial security, interpersonal relationships and career success or failure.
自控力是可以被訓練出來的。本書提供了循序漸進的方法,幫助你認清自己的目標,增強自控力,并做出改變一生的決定——無論這個決定是減肥、管理收支、減緩壓力、克服拖延癥、成為好家長,還是找到你的生活重心。
2. Ann Patchett, Commonwealth
安·帕奇特《聯(lián)結(jié)》
In her brilliant new novel, Patchett, winner of the 2001 Orange Prize for Bel Canto, traces the consequences of one impulsive act on an American family over 50 years. She begins with a christening party for Fix and Beverly Keating's second daughter, Franny. Bert Cousins, a Los Angeles deputy district attorney, shows up uninvited with a bottle of gin. By the end of the party, he has kissed Beverly. Patchett creates memorable, complex characters in this exploration of the reverberations of betrayal.
在這本絕妙的新小說中,因《美聲唱法》獲得2001年柑橘文學獎的作者帕奇特追溯了一個美國家庭長達50年的歷史變遷,而這一切僅僅源于一次沖動行為。故事開頭是費克斯和貝弗利·基廷的二女兒弗蘭妮的受禮儀式,一位洛杉磯小律師伯特·考辛斯帶著一瓶杜松子酒不請自來。宴會結(jié)束時,他已經(jīng)親吻了女主人貝弗利。帕奇特探究了背叛帶來的巨大影響,并在其中塑造了讓人印象深刻的復雜人物。
3. Franz Kafka, Konundrum
弗蘭茲·卡夫卡作品集
"Kafkaesque" is "synonymous with the nightmarish, the ominous, and the bureaucratically bizarre," notes Peter Wortsman in the afterword to his lucid and rhythmic translation of a selection of the Prague icon's short stories, parables, letters and diaries.
“卡夫卡式”就是“噩夢般的、不祥的、充滿官僚主義的怪異”,彼得·沃茨曼在后記中如此寫道。這本書收集了捷克代表作家卡夫卡的短篇故事、寓言、信件和日記,而沃茨曼的譯文清晰明了,韻律感十足。
4. Peter Ho Davies, The Fortunes
彼得·何·戴維斯《命運》
Davies distills 150 years of Chinese-American history in his timely and eloquent new novel. In Gold, the first of its four sections, Ah Ling, 14, the son of a Hong Kong prostitute, seeks his fortune in California. Silver portrays the 30-year career of the LA-born actress Anna May Wong, who co-stars with Douglas Fairbanks at 19.
戴維斯在這本如約而至的新小說中用豐富生動的語言提煉了美籍華人150年的歷史。在四章節(jié)中的第一章“黃金篇”里,14歲的阿凌(音譯),一個香港妓女的兒子,在加利福尼亞開始了追尋財富的生活?!鞍足y篇”講述了洛杉磯出生的女演員黃柳霜30年的職業(yè)生涯,她從19歲就開始和道格拉斯·費爾班克斯同臺演出了。
5. James Gleick, Time Travel
詹姆斯·格萊克《時光旅行》
Science writer Gleick takes a panoramic approach to the fourth dimension, a subject that fascinated the fin de siècle scientific world. He begins with HG Wells drafting his landmark 1895 book The Time Machine. He includes Edith Nesbit, a Wells contemporary, who invented a time-travel subgenre in her 1906 novel The Story of the Amulet.
科學作家格萊克對第四維空間進行了全景式的描繪。在19世紀末的科學世界,四維空間是一個熱門話題。故事始于1895年HG·威爾斯起草里程碑式巨著《時間機器》,結(jié)束于1906年威爾士當代作家伊迪斯·內(nèi)斯比特在小說《護身符的故事》中創(chuàng)造出時光旅行的亞主題。
6. Enrique Vila-Matas, Vampire in Love
安立奎·維拉-馬塔斯《戀愛中的吸血鬼》
Barcelona-born Vila-Matas has published more than 20 novels, and won the 2014 Prix Formentor. This selection of 19 stories showcases his dark yet whimsical wit and genre-blending tendencies. In the title story, a desperate man with two sharp vampire's teeth has a sinful eye for an altar boy. The narrator calls him "Saint Nosferatu". "Like all those in love", Vila-Matas writes, "he is both vampire and martyr".
出生于巴塞羅那的維拉-馬塔斯已經(jīng)出版了20多本小說,并于2014年獲得了福明托文學獎。本書精選的19個故事展現(xiàn)了他黑暗而古怪的智慧和喜歡把多種體裁混雜到一起的寫作傾向。在該書同名故事中,一個絕望的男人長著兩顆吸血鬼尖牙,他總是用邪惡的眼光看著助祭男孩,敘述者稱其為“圣·諾斯菲拉圖”。維拉-馬塔斯寫道:“就像所有戀愛中的人一樣,他既是一個吸血鬼,又是一位犧牲者?!?/p>
7. Ursula Le Guin, The Complete Orsinia: Malafrena, Stories and Songs
厄休拉·勒·奎恩《奧西尼亞:馬拉芙里那,故事和歌曲》
Le Guin is the second living novelist (after Philip Roth) to be included in the Library of America. This first volume, with a new introduction and chronology from the author, gathers her early work, before she turned to science fiction. The Complete Orsinia offers invaluable insights into Le Guin's genius. "My games are transformation and invention," she writes.
勒·奎恩是繼菲利普·羅斯之后第二位在有生之年就被收入美國文庫的小說家。這本最早的書中加入了作者的新簡介和大事記,收錄了她在轉(zhuǎn)型為科幻小說家之前的早期作品?!秺W西尼亞》一書能讓讀者以全新的視角欣賞勒·奎恩的天才,有極高的價值。她寫道:“變形和創(chuàng)造是我的游戲。”
8.Ruth Franklin, Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life
露絲·弗蘭克林《雪莉·杰克遜:困擾的人生》
Known best for her 1948 story The Lottery, and her novels The Haunting of Hill House (1959) and We Have Always Lived in the Castle (1962), Shirley Jackson wrote literary suspense in the tradition of Hawthorne, Poe and Henry James. Franklin tracks Jackson's mythmaking life from her girlhood in a northern Californian suburb through her marriage to literary critic Stanley Edgar Hyman with whom she had four children.
雪莉·杰克遜的懸疑作品沿襲了霍桑、坡和享利·詹姆斯的風格,她最著名的作品是1948年的故事《彩票》及小說《山宅鬼驚魂》(1959)。弗蘭克林追溯了杰克遜神奇的人生經(jīng)歷,從她在加州北部的少女時光,寫到她的婚姻,又寫到和她一起生育了四個孩子的文學批評家斯坦利·愛德加·海曼。
9. Eimear McBride, The Lesser Bohemians
伊彌爾·麥克布萊德《小波西米亞人》
McBride wowed the literary world with her first novel, A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing, which won the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction and the first Goldsmiths Prize, among others. McBride writes of her narrator's tentative first roles in student plays, and a year of increasing intimacy with an older actor. As he describes his own childhood, and twisted relationship with his mother, she struggles to tame her own most powerful instincts.
麥克布萊德的第一部小說《女孩是半成品》震驚了整個文學界,她獲得了百利女性獎(虛構(gòu)類)和金匠獎等諸多獎項。麥克布萊描寫了主人公在學生戲劇中嘗試表演的最早的角色,還寫到她有一年與一位年長的演員越來越親密。當他描述自己的童年以及與母親的病態(tài)關(guān)系時,她盡力壓抑著自己最強烈的本能情感。
10. Jonathan Safran Foer, Here I Am
喬納森·薩弗蘭·福爾《我來了》
Foer's energetic third novel is chock-a-block with modern conundrums. Jacob and Julia's marriage, frayed by raising three young sons, threatens to tear apart over his sexting. Serious sadness, cheeky dialogue and cutting-edge relevance keep this novel crackling.
福爾的第三部小說熱情洋溢,書中充滿了現(xiàn)代人的困境。因為要養(yǎng)育三個年幼的兒子,雅各布和朱麗婭的婚姻變得千瘡百孔,雅各布的色情短信更讓他們的感情汲汲可危。嚴肅的感傷情緒、大膽的人物對話和時髦的話題讓這部小說立刻爆火。