雅思閱讀能力培訓：讀英文原版書

讀書使我們開闊視野，啓發我們的心靈，更重要的是能夠從中獲取知識。我們在備考雅思的時候也可以通過閱讀書籍增長知識，提升英語水平。下面就給大家推薦幾本英語原版書籍，希望大家能夠從中汲取養分不斷地提升自己的雅思水平。

1. Border Child - Michel Stone

《邊境小孩》邁克爾•斯通

藩籬之外，還有人性

特朗普上臺後頻繁搞事情，其中就包括和墨西哥的撕X大戰，他下令沿着美墨邊境修築“長城”，以阻隔從墨西哥向美國偷越邊境的非法移民。

這本書就是在宏觀政治大背景下發生的令人心碎的故事。

精彩書評：

A gripping and politically savvy look at the human impact of current immigration policy and an honest examination of the perils facing desperate immigrants as they travel north."

-- Kirkus, starred review

該書以扣人心絃的情節對當前移民政策的人爲影響進行了政治解讀，同時也真實呈現了那些絕望的移民們所面臨的危險 。——科克斯書評

"Border Child is an important and timely must-read! Michel Stone writes with confident authority about the heart wrenching experiences of a young Mexican couple desperately seeking their child, lost at the border. As the reader journeys with them, a deeper, meaningful appreciation of their culture, decisions, and humanity takes root in our heart. Border Child is a cross-cultural tour de force."

-- Mary Alice Monroe

《邊境小孩》是一本很有分量的、反映時勢的必讀書籍! 邁克爾•斯通以非常專業權威的筆觸描述了一對年輕的墨西哥夫婦拼命尋找他們在邊境失散的孩子的心痛經歷，讀者通過文字跟隨他們一起旅行，對他們的文化、決定、和人性產生了更深的、有意義的理解。《邊境小孩》 是一本跨文化的傑作。

——《紐約時報》暢銷小說家瑪麗•愛麗絲•門羅

簡介：

In Stone's first novel,The Iguana Tree,Héctor makes the risky border crossing from Mexico into the US and finds a good job in South Carolina. When his wife Lilia follows him, she is separated from their infant daughter Alejandra.

Border Child begins several years later, back in their home village in Oaxaca, where both of them mourn their Alejandra, fearing she is dead. Then comes a message that they might be able to find her. As Lilia prepares for the birth of their third child, haunted by the consequences of her actions, Héctor sets off on a search that leads to a possibility neither had considered. Stone makes palpable the vulnerabilities and exploitation of Lilia and Héctor, hard-working parents seeking a better future for their family.

在斯通的第一部小說《鬣(lie)蜥樹》中，赫克託從墨西哥冒險跨越邊境來到美國，之後在南卡羅來納州找到一份好工作。赫克託的妻子莉莉婭後來在前往美國跟隨丈夫的途中，被迫和年幼的孩子阿萊杭德娜失散了。

幾年後，當赫克託和妻子回到在瓦哈卡的家鄉，爲可能已經死去的孩子阿萊杭德娜悲傷時，《邊境小孩》的故事由此展開。這時，有消息傳來說他們或許能找到女兒。在莉莉婭準備生育第三個孩子時，赫克託對妻子懷孕帶來的後續影響很是苦惱，於是他動身去尋找阿萊杭德娜的下落，由此遇到了以前從未想過的事情。

斯通真實地描述了這對父母爲了家庭的美好未來而辛苦奮鬥的過程中身處弱勢深受剝削的境地。

2.The Songs of Trees — David George Haskell

《樹之歌》 大衛•喬治•哈思克

禪宗式解讀12棵樹的故事

精彩書評：

“Haskell thinks like a biologist， writes like a poet， and gives the natural world the kind of open-minded attention one expects from a Zen monk rather than a hypothesis-driven scientist.”

—The New York Times

哈思克思考像生物學家，寫作像詩人，對自然世界的觀察猶如禪宗那般通透開明，而不是一位基於假設的科學家。

—《紐約時報》

“Haskell’s observational powers are impressive， his descriptions evocative， his knowledge wide-ranging， and his conclusions thoughtful and generous.”

—The Wall Street Journal

哈思克的觀察力令人印象深刻，描述打動人心，知識廣博，總結引人深思又開闊視野。

—《華爾街日報》

簡介：

Haskell makes repeated visits to a dozen trees around the world. “The forest presses its mouth to every living creature and exhales,” he writes in the Amazonian rainforest in Ecuador, a place of unrivaled plant diversity. There he climbs to the crown of a giant ceiba tree at least 150 years old and traces its connections to plant, animal, bacterial and fungal life. He visits an olive plantation in Jerusalem, and tracks seasons of new growth after a green ash falls on the Cumberland plateau in Kentucky. On New York's Upper West Side he wires a Callery pear planted above the subway, describing how the city's sounds affect the tree's growth (“when a plant is shaken, it grows more roots”). Each acutely observed essay is resonant as a poem.

哈思克多次觀察了分佈在世界各地的十二棵樹。厄瓜多爾植被類型豐富，在這裏的亞馬遜熱帶雨林裏，他寫道“森林裏所有的生物都散發出自己的氣息”。

他在這裏爬上了一棵至少有150歲樹齡的巨型木棉樹的樹冠，他記錄了這棵樹與其他動植物、細菌還有真菌的聯繫。在耶路撒冷，他去參觀當地的一家橄欖種植園。在肯塔基州的昆伯蘭高原，他記錄下一顆洋白蠟樹種子紮根後在各個季節的生長情況。在紐約上西區，他將電線繞在一棵長在地鐵上方的豆梨樹上，以此記錄城市的聲音對豆梨生長的影響(例如“當樹受到搖晃時，它會長出更多的樹根”)。每一篇觀察敏銳的散文都像詩歌一樣朗朗上口。

3. The Woman Who Had Two Navels and Tales of the Tropical Gothic ——Nick Joaquin

《有兩個肚臍的女人和熱帶哥特故事集》

尼克•華奎因

回望歷史，才知未來

簡介：

For the centenary of his birth comes the first US publication of a compilation of work from Filipino writer Nick Joaquin, including his best-known stories and the 1966 play A Portrait of the Artist as Filipino. Joaquin's writing is laced with references to his country's colonial history, Catholicism and pre-Christian rituals. The “two navels” in the title story refer to symbolic ties to Spanish and American colonial periods. (The once-heroic father in the story, who chooses exile in Hong Kong over American occupation, is overcome with despair when he finds his ancestral house in Dinondo destroyed.) May Day Eve and The Summer Solstice dramatise the lure of pagan celebrations (in the latter, Dona Lupe is transformed after joining dancing village women: “her eyes brimmed with moonlight, and her mouth with laughter”).

在華奎因誕辰一百年的時候，美國第一次出版了菲律賓作家尼克•華奎因的作品集，其中包括一些知名的小說以及1966年出版的劇本《作爲菲律賓人的藝術家肖像》。

華奎因在寫作時會融入自己國家的殖民歷史、天主教和基督教誕生以前的禮制儀式。小說書名裏的“兩個肚臍”象徵着祖國與西班牙和美國殖民時期的關係。(小說裏，曾經十分英勇的父親，在美軍佔領家鄉之後選擇流落到香港，但在發現位於Dinondo的祖屋被摧毀後陷入了絕望。)在五朔節前夕和夏至，異教徒們會舉辦盛大的慶祝活動。(夏至慶祝活動上，盧皮夫人加入當地婦女的跳舞行列之後發生了變化：“她的眼睛裏閃爍着月光的銀輝，嘴角也揚起了笑容”)。

4.What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky

—Lesley Nneka Arimah

《當人從天而降的時候意味着什麼》

萊斯利•奈卡•亞麗瑪

專開腦洞的奇葩故事匯

這12個故事充滿魔幻現實主義元素，並對人性和環境具有更包容的理解。她探討了父母和孩子、丈夫和妻子、情人和朋友如何解決文化衝突以及努力調和矛盾的慾望和需求。

簡介：

From the Nigerian-born, Minneapolis-based Arimah comes a story collection full of dazzlers. Light, in which a father taking care of his 11-year-old daughter in Nigeria while her mother is in the US pursuing her MBA discovers he wants to preserve her “streak of fire”, won the 2015 African Commonwealth Prize. In Who Will Greet You at Home, a National Magazine Award finalist after publication in The New Yorker, an assistant hairdresser creates a yearned-for baby out of hair, only to discover its insatiable appetites. In the dystopian title story, a finalist for the 2016 Caine Prize, a woman who specialises in calculating grief faces the question “What would happen if you couldn't forget, if every emotion from every person whose grief you'd eaten came back up?”

作者亞麗瑪出生於尼日利亞，居住在美國明尼阿波利斯。這是她的處女作，一本充滿光怪陸離元素的故事集，探索了母親和女兒、男人和女人以及他們與故鄉之間彼此相約束的關係。該書獲得了2015年非洲聯邦獎。

在故事《光》中，父親在妻子去美國攻讀工商管理學碩士時，獨自待在尼日利亞照顧他們11歲的女兒，他發現他想要保護女兒的“火花”。《誰會在家裏迎接你》在《紐約客》發表後入圍國家雜誌獎，書中的一位美髮師助理用頭髮創造出一個自己渴望的嬰孩，卻發現這個嬰孩慾壑難填。在一個入圍了2016凱恩文學獎的反烏托邦標題的故事中，一位總是在計算各種悲傷的女人直面這個問題：“如果你無法忘記從每個人表情中吸收的悲傷，那會發生什麼?”

5. Living in the Weather of the World ——Richard Bausch

《生活在世界大環境之下》理查德•鮑什

生活這麼喪，打着雨傘還是會淋溼

簡介：

These 14 flawless new stories from a master craftsman deal with betrayals, distances and unspoken family conflict. In The Same People, as a couple married for decades prepare to end their lives, the wife says, “I wish we'd had children.” The young Memphis painter in The Lineaments of Gratified Desire finds his engagement disrupted when he is commissioned by a wealthy 83-year-old to paint a nude portrait of his 23-year-old bride-to-be. Two Iraq war veterans drink cognac with a Vietnam vet who owns a Memphis bar; Veterans Night ends in tragedy. As the gloomy narrator of Map-Reading a gay man estranged from his family who is meeting his half sister on a windy, rainy day, puts it, “this was life in the world: getting yourself drenched even with an umbrella.”

這14篇完美的全新故事出自一位文壇巨匠之手，他善於描寫背叛、隔閡以及其他難以言說的家庭矛盾。

在《相同的人》一文中，一對已經結婚幾十年的夫婦準備結束他們的生命時，妻子說“我們當初要是有個孩子就好了”。而在《心滿意足的模樣》一文中，來自孟菲斯的年輕畫家被一位83歲的富翁指派，要求他給自己23歲的未婚妻畫一幅裸體像，二人的婚約因此被擾亂。在《老兵之夜》一文中，兩名參加過伊拉克戰爭的老兵同一名越南老兵一起喝白蘭地，這名越南老兵在孟菲斯擁有一家酒吧，故事最後以悲劇收尾。《讀地圖》一文中，故事的講述者是一位憂鬱的同性戀，被自己的家庭疏遠，還在既颳風又下雨的天氣裏遇見了自己同父異母的姐妹，他說“這就是這個世界上的生活：即使你撐着雨傘，你還是會被淋溼。”

6. Where the Water Goes——David Owen

《水都去哪了》大衛•歐文

莫讓眼淚成爲世界最後一滴水

簡介：

The New Yorker staff writer Owen examines the origins, scope and current state of the Colorado river in the American West that supplies water to more than 36 million people, irrigates six million acres of farmland, and powers two of the country's largest hydroelectric plants. Over the last century the river's water has been “over-allocated,” Owen writes; this imbalance has been exacerbated by the drought in the West. He brings us to key spots along the river, from the Grand Canyon to Las Vegas, the Imperial Valley, and the Salton Sea. He describes struggles with water shortages, and solutions that may arise in the future, including desalinization, diverting other rivers, and cloud seeding. Where the Water Goes is an eloquent argument for addressing the impact of human inhabitants on the natural world.

《紐約客》特約撰稿人歐文考察了美國西部科羅拉多河的源頭、流域和現狀。這條河流爲3600多萬人提供水源，灌溉600萬英畝農田，而且還爲美國最大的兩座水電站供能。

歐文寫道，過去一個世紀裏，這條河的水資源已經被“過度使用”。美國西部的旱情更是加劇了這一不平衡性。他介紹了沿河的幾個主要地點，包括大峽谷、拉斯維加斯、帝王谷以及沙爾頓海。他在書中描述了未來可能會出現的缺水問題及其應對方法，包括淡化海水、其他河流改道以及人工降雨。《水都去哪了》是爲解決人類居住者對大自然影響而提出的有力論述。

7.Guesswork —Martha Cooley,

《猜測》瑪莎•庫利

一切問題，最終都是時間問題

簡介：

Cooley spends a 14-month sabbatical from her life in Brooklyn in the medieval village of Castiglione del Terziere with her Italian husband, Antonio Romani, a fellow writer and translator. There she comes to terms with the deaths of eight dear friends within the past decade. Her mother, nearing 90, is becoming increasingly frail. Her father suffers from dementia. These accumulated losses, she writes "have upended me." Cooley describes her daily life with Antonio, the feral cats and bats and villagers they encounter. She muses on time, mortality and ambition. Midway through her break, she realises she has dwelt more upon endings than on beginnings – a new novel, a new marriage. In these lyrical essays, Cooley brings us along vicariously to feel time loosen its grip, allowing a renewing self to emerge.

庫利從她在布魯克林的生活中抽身出來，和她的意大利丈夫安東尼奧•羅馬尼一起在Castiglione del Terziere(地名)的中世紀村莊裏度過了一個長達14個月的假期。她的丈夫也是一名作家兼翻譯家。過去十年裏，她有八位摯友去世，在那裏她開始接受他們的死亡。她的母親快90歲了，身體越來越虛弱。她的父親患有癡呆症。她寫道，這些不斷失去的經歷“讓我不堪重負”。

庫利描述了她和安東尼奧的日常生活，他們遇到的野貓、蝙蝠還有村民。她會思索時間、生死和人生抱負的意義。在休假的過程中，她意識到相比於開始一件事，像是一部新小說或者婚姻的開端，她以前更看重結尾。庫利的抒情散文讓我們產生共鳴，感覺到時間放慢腳步，讓自己重獲新生。

8. The Complete Stories—Leonora Carrington,

《完整故事集》利奧諾拉•卡林頓

自帶神經質暗黑屬性的一本書

精彩書評：

“This definitive collection of Carrington's short fiction is a treasure and a gift to the world. A stunning achievement.”

--Jeff Vandermeer

“卡林頓的這部短篇小說大合集是獻給世界的一座寶庫，一份禮物。這部書就是一個驚人的成就。”

——傑夫•範德米爾

簡介：

Carrington, the surrealist painter, was also a writer of strangely dark and unearthly short stories, collected here for the first time (and including three previously unpublished tales) – those in French are translated by Kathrine Talbot, those in Spanish by Anthony Kerrigan. Born in Lancashire on the day the US declared war on Germany, Carrington ran off to France with Max Ernst at 19. When he was interned, she became unhinged and ended up in an asylum, given the pharmaceutical equivalent of shock treatment. Witness to cruelties and terrible disruptions of reality, Carrington wrote stories filled with fluid creatures caught somewhere between animal, vegetable, mineral and human. One narrator sends a hyena in her place to her debutante ball; another visits a nearby house to discover her neighbors are long dead, possibly vampires. Like her paintings, Carrington's stories are hauntingly original. (Credit: Dorothy)

卡林頓是一位超現實主義畫家，同時也是一名從事奇異暗黑和靈異短篇小說寫作的作家。她擅長描寫死亡主題，擅用華麗的場景、尖銳的諷刺、無賴喜劇以及豐富的想象力進行創作。在她誕辰一百週年時，她生平所寫的所有短篇小說被首次集合出版，其中包括三篇以前從未發表的故事。

美國對德宣戰的那一天，卡林頓出生在蘭開夏郡。19歲時，卡林頓和馬克斯•恩斯特一起逃往法國。馬克斯被關押後，卡林頓精神錯亂，最終被送到精神病院接受相當於休克治療的藥物治療。由於親身見證了現實的殘酷和混亂，卡林頓筆下的故事充滿了多變的角色，他們介於動物、植物、礦物和人類之間。

不論你是不是要參加雅思考試，只要你想要在英語上有所提升，都要好好努力，這些書籍也可以幫助大家快速找到學習的語感。如果你對於英語原版書籍感興趣，文章中推薦的內容也可以作爲參考。學習是一場漫長的旅行，祝大家一路順風。