📙 Part 2: Describe a book that you have read many times

This episode's vocabulary

To tire (verb) - to begin to feel as if you have no energy and want to rest or go to sleep, or to make someone feel this way.

Series (noun) - a number of similar or related events or things, one following another.

Hard/soft science fiction (noun) - hard sci-fi deals with sciences such as math, physics, computer science, engineering, and chemistry.

To feature (verb) - to include someone or something as an important part.

Cast (noun) - the actors in a film, play, or show.

Doorstopper (noun) - a large book, which by implication could be used to stop a door.

To dip into something (phrasal verb) - to read small parts of a book or magazine.

Overrun (verb) - to continue past an intended limit, especially a finishing time or a cost.

Unhinged (adj.) - mentally ill.

Goody-two-shoes (adj.) - someone who is too ready to behave in a way intended to please people in authority.

Members of the landed gentry - those who own a lot of land.

To glaze over (phrasal verb) - if your eyes glaze or glaze over, they stay still and stop showing any emotion because you are bored or tired or have stopped listening.

To gloss over something (phrasal verb) - to avoid considering something, such as an embarrassing mistake, to make it seem not important, and to quickly continue talking about something else.

Questions and Answers

R: I used to never tire of reading the Knights Dawn trilogy by Peter F. Hamilton, especially the first book of the series, which is called The Reality Dysfunction. It's a mix of very hard and soft science fiction and features a huge cast of characters from very different backgrounds. It must have taken ages for him to write. In more detail, it's set about, what, 500 years into the future when humans are exploring and colonizing space, but taking all of their emotional and psychological baggage with them, despite access to this amazing technology. On one isolated planet, a chance encounter with an alien starts a kind of plague which brings the dead back to life by granting them control over the bodies of living people. And the reality of dysfunction details the initial stages of this outbreak and how people react to it. As you might guess from what I've just said, they don't react to it very well. I think I used to read it at least once a year until I went to Russia because the book itself is so massive. It really wouldn't be a good idea to take it in my luggage. It's like well over 1000 pages. So it's an absolute doorstopper, and that would take up precious space and parts of the weight allowance. But now I'm back home, I still dip into it occasionally because some parts of it are amazing like the escape from a doomed planet absolutely overrun with all these completely unhinged dead monsters that can manipulate reality. I also like how it features living starships with their own personalities, which adds an interesting aspect to the characters. And like I said, the human cost is already very diverse, ranging from the survivors of genocide to like two goody-two-shoes ladies from a noble family on a planet, which has got this really primitive system of government with the landed gentry. Every time I read it, I find something new to enjoy, because it's so long, you could easily glaze over or gloss over things and when you come back to it, you find them. If I hadn't read this book, I doubt I'd have developed my grasp of science fiction conventions as much as I have. And I wouldn't have tried my hand at writing stories in the way I do. So I'm glad I picked it. And I'm glad it picked up. And I always recommend it to other people when I can.

M: What about your friends? Do they enjoy this book?

R: I don't think any of them have read it. We all have very different reading tastes.

M: Thank you, Rory, for your story!

R: No worries.

Discussion

M: Wow! What a story, dear listener.

R: Yeah, it's pretty weird.

M: So the question is, like, if I don't have a book that I've read many times, what do I do? For example, me?

R: If you haven't read a book.

M: No, no, many times, you see? So describe a book that you've read many times. What if I read all the books just once?

R: You're a Russian, you have been forced to read different books many times I know that for a fact from the Russian education system.

M: But what does it mean like read a book many times? So I read it once, then I come back to it and read it again. Right? It's not just like I take the book, I read everything. And then I come back to certain chapters and read them again. Like at school, you know, when they discuss a novel.

R: Why not? It doesn't say that you have to read the whole thing many times in the task. So why not just talk about that?

M: So, dear listener, you can choose a book you read at school and then discuss it. You know? Like a novel by Dickens or, I don't know, Dostaevsky, Dostaevsky's novels. Also, describe a book you've read many times as you read it at school, then you read it at university, and then you read it when you were, I don't know, thirty-five years old, right? For me, personally, I don't think I have such a book. Maybe like War and Piece. I read it at school and then I listened to the audio version of the book. So that's like twice. But that's not many times. So even if you read a book twice, you can talk about it. But not many times, but twice.

R: I suppose if you're a religious person, then you'll have read your holy text many times.

M: True.

R: I'm pretty sure people who are Christian, Muslim, or Jewish would have read their holy books quite a few times.

M: And here the task is with present perfect. So a book you have read, and that's why we're going to use the past. So past simple or present perfect. Like I've read this book twice, the first time I read it. It's going to be in the past, right? So I chose this book. I read it, I had it. We studied it at school. Rory started off with I used to never tire of reading. So Rory never got tired of reading. So I never tire of reading. I never get tired of reading. And Rory told us things about the Knights Dawn trilogy. Trilogy? Like there are three books, right?

R: And I focused on one specific one because the first book I think is much better than the other two.

M: By Peter F. Hamilton.

R: Yes.

M: So you can Google the book. Read something about it. And this is science fiction, right?

R: Both hard and soft.

M: Yeah. So the Knights Dawn trilogy, and the first book in the series. So there's a series of books, three books. So the first book of the series is called The Reality Dysfunction. Yeah, but it's a mix of hard and soft science fiction. What's hard science fiction? What's soft science fiction?

R: Hard science fiction is grounded in our current understanding of how space works. And soft science fiction is just making up stuff because it's cool. So for example, the descriptions of how space travel works in the book is pretty realistic, like the effects that gravity has on people. But what's not realistic is the fact that you have artificial intelligence that can sit down and have a conversation with you. That's not really realistic. Not yet. We're headed that way. But not yet.

M: This book has a massive cast of characters. So there are different characters. Characters? Like people. Book characters, but they may not be real people, we call them characters. So a lot of characters, a massive cast of characters from different backgrounds.

R: But that just means that they all have different origin stories, like wildly different. In one chapter, people are being exterminated. And in the next, they're living a very peaceful life. And it's all very chilled out.

M: Then you describe the book in more detail. So in more detail, it's set about 500 years in the future. So it's set in the future or it's set in the past. Or it's set like when.

R: If you don't know exactly when you can always say about or roughly.

M: Like it's set in Paris 100 years ago. So this book is set in the future when humans are exploring and colonizing space.

R: Although, it's interesting because it is set about is in the present simple when humans are exploring and colonizing, which is present continuous. Ooh, we're describing the future.

M: Nice.

R: And they're doing it together. It's an arrangement. Oh, wow.

M: And here Rory is using a lot of topic-specific vocabulary because the book is about space. So he says, like, on one isolated planet, like on one like a separate planet, encounter with an alien. You know, aliens? From space.

R: Although, there is some less topic-specific stuff that you could transfer. For example, emotional and psychological baggage is just all of the problems that you have with your emotions and your psychology. That features in almost every single book because there's always some kind of drama.

M: I used to read it at least once a year. Wow. You see? So Rory read it once a year.

R: I love that book. He's a brilliant writer.

M: Yeah, I wonder, dear listener. Like do you have such a book, like you read once a year? Or maybe like I used to read it a lot at school. So I used to, I don't read it anymore. Or I used to read it a lot at university. So maybe one book, you had to read it and you studied it during your classes. So you read and reread certain chapters and you analyzed the text. Yeah? So you read it many times. And then Rory told us about the size of the book. So the book is so massive. So it's huge, like the size of the book. It's well over 1000 pages. So you can also comment on the size of the book. And a very good phrase is it's an absolute doorstopper.

R: I think we've talked about that phrase before.

M: Yeah. So a doorstopper, if the book is big, like the size of the book is huge, you can put it next to the door to stop the door from closing. So kind of use a book in a creative way. And metaphorically or kind of literally we can say, oh, it's huge. It's an absolute doorstopper. So the book is massive, like War and Piece by Tolstoy. We have two volumes. And they are both door stoppers.

R: How many pages are they? Do you know?

M: Endless pages, Rory, endless. And I'm listening to it now. I'm still listening to War and Piece. I prefer audiobooks. Yeah, sometimes I read paper books but I listen to books more often. I deep into it occasionally, which means I continue reading it, I take it and start reading it again.

R: But there's also, if you dip into something it doesn't mean that you start reading it from the beginning it could just be you go to your favorite chapter, for example.

M: I prefer dipping into it by the fire. Or I still deep into it on the metro? I am still deep into it when I have some free time. Occasionally, you know, like once in a while. Sometimes. Some parts of it are really amazing. So maybe you have some chapters, some parts, some extracts from the book that are really amazing. And you keep rereading them. And here Rory is talking about completely unhinged, undead monsters. What? Okay, I understand that they are monsters, but what like completely unhinged and undead? Undead. So they're not dead?

R: Well, if they're unhinged... Yeah, if they're undead, then they're not alive, but they're not dead anymore either. They've been brought back from the dead. If they're unhinged the first set of people they encounter who come back from the dead are completely insane. Because they've been dead for so long. They don't, they don't know how to handle being alive again. So they just go mental, or rather they go crazy. And they have these powers. So they just end up completely destroying the society that they're in because they can't cope with being alive anymore.

M: Wow. You see, you should mention a specific chapter or part in the book that really excites you. But in a very concise way. So kind of like half of a sentence, right? Or maybe one sentence. So I still dip into it occasionally, because some parts of the book are amazing. Like, and then bla bla bla bla bla bla, just like one sentence. Do not retell the plot of the book. Okay, dear listener? So in a very kind short, concise manner. The book also features leaving star shapes. Well, of course, it's about space. So it features something. What else can a book feature?

R: Oh, it features different characters. It features an interesting setting. It can feature all kinds of things. It's just like what's inside the book.

M: The human cast is very diverse. So characters. The characters which are in the book. We can say the human cast is already very diverse. So like different. Ranging from the survivors to beautiful ladies. So if there are different characters, you can use this range. Ranging from simple office workers to presidents. Goody two shoes ladies. Who are those ladies? Goody two shoes ladies.

R: Goody two shoes is actually just a way of describing people who are extremely well-behaved and who delight in being well-behaved. You can use it to describe characters, but you can also use it to describe individuals in the real world.

M: Every time I read it, I find something new to enjoy. You see? And this is the reason why you read it many times. So in the past, every time I read it, I found something new to enjoy. Nice. This book helped Rory to develop his grasp of science fiction. So his grasp, his understanding, his knowledge of science fiction, this genre. So you can say this book helped me to develop my reading habit, or it helped me to develop my, I don't know, taste in reading, in science fiction or horror or comedy or, I don't know, novels. And Rory read this book. And then he started writing his own stories. Yeah. So he has tried his hand at writing. Right? So I read this book, and I tried my hand at writing science fiction stories, books, and novels.

R: So if you try your hand at something, it means you try to do something for yourself.

M: And then you can finish off with I'm glad I picked it picked it. Picked it like I chose it. And I always recommend it to other people, to my friends. Yes, dear listener, like you should choose a book, you can lie and choose a book that is easy for you to talk about, even if you read it once, even if you haven't read it, dear listener, but it's easy for you to talk about it. Talk about this book and say that you read it many times.

R: Just make sure your answers are relevant to the task.

M: Yes. Thank you very much for listening! We'll get back to you in speaking part three, where we talk about books in general, okay? Bye!

R: Bye!

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