If you want an older book that I thought was great…what about Roots?
But really, who is she going to be able to talk to this one with?
@LuckyCharms913 , I’m a big fan of Austen. I tried to get my D to read Pride and Prejudice, or any Jane Austen at all. She was was totally bored and barely got beyond the first chapter. She also had to read Jane Eyre for summer reading in high school and hated it. My son had to read Silent Spring last summer and was bored by it. I guess teachers still see value in having students read older books, but, as this post makes clear, there are plenty of more recent books that are engaging and might lead to more current talking points.
The student messaged me to say she’s been reading this thread and thanks us all.
^^^^I was going to recommend Jane Austen, especially Pride and Prejudice.
There isn’t much non-fiction here, so I’ll add a suggestion from that genre. Your student should read John McPhee, he’s a long-time New Yorker essayist and a writing professor at Princeton. He’s written on a huge variety of subjects, and the best way to sample his work would be to read, The John McPhee Reader or The Second John McPhee Reader.
Or Sense and sensibility!
John McPhee is such a gem! @Bromfield2
Bad Blood was a pretty engaging book about Silicon Valley and Theranos. I couldn’t put it down!
The only one I like on this list so far is the Harry Potter series. If she has read it in her first language, then she doesn’t need to worry about the plot line. She will pick up lots of useful vocabulary (I sure did reading it in Spanish), and there are plenty of complex sentence forms there. It is not a tecnically easy read.
My recommendation is The Art of Crossing Cultures, by Craig Storti. The practical advice on living in a new culture will serve her well.
One other thing that was suggested to me…have her start listening to the U.S. news everyday. At one point, someone suggested a site to me where I could listen to the news in French, but it was spoken at a slower rate. @mathmom did that come from you?
Wondering if there is something like that in English…slower paced speaking news.
@thumper1 Voice of America has broadcasts in ‘Special English’ which is slower paced.
And even though it’s not a work of literature, Elements of Style by Strunk and White is one of the most useful primers on how to comprehend and write English correctly.
@thumper1
“Slower-paced speaking news” — I guess podcasts will be the way to go. I use stitcher but there are many other apps, it has 0.5x up to 2x speed, I use 1.5x to listen to, could not really stand most of the 1x speed, not sure anyone could stand 0.5x, but the options are there.
Egads, @Hamurtle ! That’s too boring even for me, haha! I get that it’s useful though. Now Eats, Shoots and Leaves, that’s a great guide to practical English usage. Fun to read and useful!
Yes there is “The news in slow ___” insert language in a number of languages. Just as an aside, it was a revelation to me that one can watch most youtube videos at a faster speed. I like to watch painting instructional videos which are so tedious at normal speeds, but are great at 1.5 or 2x. It turns out you can slow them down too. I gather you can do the same with podcasts, but I don’t listen to them in any kind of regular way.