今夏书海佳作拾贝

Here is a book called the Last Days of Dead Celebrities¹. Can tabloid² journalism³ get any lower? The author Mitchell Fink takes a group of famous people, all they have in common is the fact that they are no longer with us. Then he invades their privacy by describing the ways in which they died. But you know what, this isn't what it sounds like. It turns out to be a decent not too gossipy book that connects attitudes toward death with attitudes toward life. And it suggests that if celebrities' lives reveal anything about our own experience, maybe their deaths do to. This is not to say that you won't wanna hide this book in a brown paper wrapper, if you're reading it in a public place. It just means that even the most unlikely sounding subject matter can take you by surprise.

Take Ava Gardner, Lee Server's biography of one of the most beautiful and headstrong women ever to appear on a movie screen. This author wrote an earlier book about Robert Mitchum, so he knows a thing or two about hard-living Hollywood stars. So do we. We know that they behave with wild abandon and then pay for the error of their ways，except that's not what happened to Ava Gardner. She fell for bullfighters, fought epic⁴ marital⁵ battles with Frank Sinatra, drank so much that she couldn't work after lunchtime and managed to stay gorgeous and footloose no matter what. She worked often but not very hard.

And you might think creating a legend like hers required some exertion⁶, but in Doing Nothing, Tom Lutz reveals that slacking, loafing and procrastinating⁷ are part of a great tradition, one that has shaped more famously industrious⁸ figures than you might imagine.

If there is anything more satisfying than relaxing with a good book is being told by the author that you are right to take it easy. When Dora, the heroine of the disarming⁹ novel Literacy and Longing¹⁰ in L.A., wants to take it easy, she doesn't engage in stereotypical¹¹ California behavior, she binges on books. And the authors Jennifer Kaufman and Karen Mack make Dora's book habit a surprisingly fresh angle, for what looks like another chick-lit candidate for beach reading. It’s surprising to find a novel this fizzy, full of lines like 'Well, I got a little sidetracked, and I don't mean with Thomas Pynchon.' (Thomas Pynchon is a best - selling American author)

There hasn't been a thriller¹² as showily literate¹³ as the King of Lies by the lawyer-turned author John Hart since Scott Turow came along. This book isn't interested in quick turns of fate, its author has cooked up a claustrophobic North Carolina crime story, and he wants you to dwell on every little gothic nuance¹⁴. The King of Lies would be the mystery story with the most baggage this season if it weren't for Matthew Pearl, who has now created a 2-book franchise¹⁵ on the cusp of mystery, literature and historical fiction. First he worked Longfellow and Oliver Wendell Holmes into the Dante Club. Now in the Poe Shadow, he teases a globe-trotting 19 century mystery out of this summer's most surprising "It" guy, Edgar Allan Poe. But when he comes to surprise value nothing rivals revisionist history, nothing has more preconceptions to shatter or more unexpected questions to ask. So in Rough Crossings, Simon Schama wanders what became of American Slaves who chose to align¹⁶ themselves on the British side of the Revolutionary War. The answer is complicated, wrenching¹⁷ and remarkably¹⁸ unexpected, in light of the fact that the terrible events described here are so fundamental to our past. The revisionism in Nathaniel Philbrick's gripping Mayflower is even more surprising, since the story of the pilgrims at Plymouth Rock is so utterly¹⁹ familiar, anyone brought up to think that the pilgrims arrived in a pristine²⁰ new land may be surprised to hear how many native Americans already lived there, and how many European vessels²¹ were already fishing off the New England coast. Enjoy your summer reading.

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headstrong 刚愎的
bullfighter 斗牛士
fall for ＝fall in love
procrastinate²² 延迟
binge on informal to do much of sth
chick-lit book about young women and the typical problems they have with men, sex, losing weight
sidetrack to make someone stop doing what they should be doing, or stop talking about what they started talking about
dwell on 细想
cook up 虚构，伪造
claustrophobic 幽闭恐怖症的,导致幽闭恐怖症的
Gothic 哥特式的
nuance 细微差别
wrenching 被扭曲的
Revisionism 修正主义
Plymouth Rock a large rock on the coast at Plymouth, Massachusetts. According to old stories, the Pilgrim Fathers took their first steps in America when they landed there in 1620.
gripping appealing
Pristine extremely fresh or clean
disarming relaxing

1 celebrities   

n.（尤指娱乐界的）名人( celebrity的名词复数 )；名流；名声；名誉

参考例句：

• He only invited A-list celebrities to his parties. 他只邀请头等名流参加他的聚会。
• a TV chat show full of B-list celebrities 由众多二流人物参加的电视访谈节目

2 tabloid   

adj.轰动性的，庸俗的；n.小报，文摘

参考例句：

• He launched into a verbal assault on tabloid journalism.他口头对小报新闻进行了抨击。
• He believes that the tabloid press has behaved disgracefully.他认为小报媒体的行为不太光彩。

3 journalism   

n.新闻工作，报业

参考例句：

• He's a teacher but he does some journalism on the side.他是教师，可还兼职做一些新闻工作。
• He had an aptitude for journalism.他有从事新闻工作的才能。

4 epic   

n.史诗，叙事诗；adj.史诗般的，壮丽的

参考例句：

• I gave up my epic and wrote this little tale instead.我放弃了写叙事诗，而写了这个小故事。
• They held a banquet of epic proportions.他们举行了盛大的宴会。

5 marital   

adj.婚姻的，夫妻的

参考例句：

• Her son had no marital problems.她的儿子没有婚姻问题。
• I regret getting involved with my daughter's marital problems;all its done is to bring trouble about my ears.我后悔干涉我女儿的婚姻问题, 现在我所做的一切将给我带来无穷的烦恼。

6 exertion   

n.尽力，努力

参考例句：

• We were sweating profusely from the exertion of moving the furniture.我们搬动家具大费气力，累得大汗淋漓。
• She was hot and breathless from the exertion of cycling uphill.由于用力骑车爬坡，她浑身发热。

7 procrastinating   

拖延，耽搁( procrastinate的现在分词 )； 拖拉

参考例句：

• Begin while others are procrastinating. Save while others are wasting. 当别人拖延时你开始。当别人浪费时你节约。
• Before adjourning, councillors must stop procrastinating and revisit this controversial issue. 在休会之前，参议员必须停止拖延，重新讨论这个引起争议的问题。

8 industrious   

adj.勤劳的，刻苦的，奋发的

参考例句：

• If the tiller is industrious,the farmland is productive.人勤地不懒。
• She was an industrious and willing worker.她是个勤劳肯干的员工。

9 disarming   

adj.消除敌意的，使人消气的v.裁军( disarm的现在分词 )；使息怒

参考例句：

• He flashed her a disarming smile. 他朝她笑了一下，让她消消气。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• We will agree to disarming troops and leaving their weapons at military positions. 我们将同意解除军队的武装并把武器留在军事阵地。 来自辞典例句

10 longing   

n.（for）渴望

参考例句：

• Hearing the tune again sent waves of longing through her.再次听到那首曲子使她胸中充满了渴望。
• His heart burned with longing for revenge.他心中燃烧着急欲复仇的怒火。

11 stereotypical   

n.常规

参考例句：

• Personas should be typical and believable, but not stereotypical. 人物角色应该是典型和可信赖的，但不是一成不变的。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓
• Anything could be stereotypical, so I guess it could be criticism. 任何东西都可以变的老套，所以我猜那就是一种批评。 来自互联网

12 thriller   

n.惊险片，恐怖片

参考例句：

• He began by writing a thriller.That book sold a million copies.他是写惊险小说起家的。那本书卖了一百万册。
• I always take a thriller to read on the train.我乘火车时，总带一本惊险小说看。

13 literate   

n.学者；adj.精通文学的，受过教育的

参考例句：

• Only a few of the nation's peasants are literate.这个国家的农民中只有少数人能识字。
• A literate person can get knowledge through reading many books.一个受过教育的人可以通过读书而获得知识。

14 nuance   

n.(意义、意见、颜色)细微差别

参考例句：

• These users will easily learn each nuance of the applications they use.这些用户会很快了解他们所使用程序的每一细微差别。
• I wish I hadn't become so conscious of every little nuance.我希望我不要变得这样去思索一切琐碎之事。

15 franchise   

n.特许，特权，专营权，特许权

参考例句：

• Catering in the schools is run on a franchise basis.学校餐饮服务以特许权经营。
• The United States granted the franchise to women in 1920.美国于1920年给妇女以参政权。

16 align   

vt.使成一线，结盟，调节；vi.成一线，结盟

参考例句：

• Align the ruler and the middle of the paper.使尺子与纸张的中部成一条直线。
• There are signs that the prime minister is aligning himself with the liberals.有迹象表明首相正在与自由党人结盟。

17 wrenching   

n.修截苗根，苗木铲根（铲根时苗木不起土或部分起土）v.（猛力地）扭( wrench的现在分词 )；扭伤；使感到痛苦；使悲痛

参考例句：

• China has been through a wrenching series of changes and experiments. 中国经历了一系列艰苦的变革和试验。 来自辞典例句
• A cold gust swept across her exposed breast, wrenching her back to reality. 一股寒气打击她的敞开的胸膛，把她从梦幻的境地中带了回来。 来自汉英文学 - 家（1-26） - 家（1-26）

18 remarkably   

ad.不同寻常地，相当地

参考例句：

• I thought she was remarkably restrained in the circumstances. 我认为她在那种情况下非常克制。
• He made a remarkably swift recovery. 他康复得相当快。

19 utterly   

adv.完全地，绝对地

参考例句：

• Utterly devoted to the people,he gave his life in saving his patients.他忠于人民，把毕生精力用于挽救患者的生命。
• I was utterly ravished by the way she smiled.她的微笑使我完全陶醉了。

20 pristine   

adj.原来的，古时的，原始的，纯净的，无垢的

参考例句：

• He wiped his fingers on his pristine handkerchief.他用他那块洁净的手帕擦手指。
• He wasn't about to blemish that pristine record.他本不想去玷污那清白的过去。

21 vessels   

n.血管( vessel的名词复数 )；船；容器；（具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的）人

参考例句：

• The river is navigable by vessels of up to 90 tons. 90 吨以下的船只可以从这条河通过。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• All modern vessels of any size are fitted with radar installations. 所有现代化船只都有雷达装置。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

22 procrastinate   

v.耽搁，拖延

参考例句：

• Most often we procrastinate when faced with something we do not want to do.面对不想做的事情，我们经常拖延。
• It's easy to procrastinate when the deadline seems infinitely far away.当最终期限总是遥遥无期时是很容易延期的。