📙 Part 2: Describe a story or novel you have read that you found interesting

This episode's vocabulary

Cover-up (noun) - an attempt to prevent the public from discovering information about a serious crime or mistake.

Conspiracy (noun) - the activity of secretly planning with other people to do something bad or illegal.

Thrilled (adj.) - extremely happy about something.

To fix up (phrasal verb) - to repair or change something in order to improve it.

To get through something (phrasal verb) - to finish something.

Plot (noun) - the story of a book, film, play, etc.

To give something away (phrasal verb) - to tell people something secret, often without intending to.

Twisted (adj.) - unusual and strange; perverse>

To descend into something (phrasal verb) - if a situation descends into a particular state, it becomes worse.

To get up to something (phrasal verb) - to do something, often something that other people would disapprove of.

Twist (noun) - an unexpected change.

(in) the middle of nowhere (idiom) - far away from any towns and cities and where few people live.

To depict (verb) - to represent or show something in a picture or story.

To catch someone's eye (idiom) - to get someone's attention.

To be up your street (idiom) - to be the type of thing that you are interested in or that you enjoy doing.

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Questions and Answers

M: Shoot.

R: Well, most recently I read a book by Ken MacLeod called "Descent", which is about an alien cover-up conspiracy. I quite like science fiction. So I picked it up. And now that I think about it, I finished it in a week actually, which is quite surprising for me, because usually, I don't have the time to do this. To be more exact about when I read it, it was just after I'd moved into my new flat in a very small Scottish village. Despite the size, I was thrilled to find that there was a library right across the road. And on my first visit, I noticed this one book in the science fiction section. I was still needing to get my internet fixed up. So without that particular distraction, I was able to get through it in a week, just before I started my new job. To cover the plot in greater depth without giving too much of it away. It's set in the near future and tells the story of one character's life when he was a teenager to his early 30s. After his close encounter with the UFO. Naturally, aliens and cover-ups are involved, but in a really twisted and unexpected way after the main character descends into madness, and gets up to some really weird things. On the subject of twists, there's one at the end, which leaves you wondering what on earth has been going on the whole time, but I won't give too much away. In more detail about the author, Ken MacLeod is from the west coast of Scotland, though he's moved about a bit since then. And since I live in a relatively isolated part of the country now, there was a sense of connection there to that particular author. Though I think he lives closer to one of the larger cities now, unlike me, I suppose he's done that since it would be easier to get published than by staying out in the middle of nowhere on the islands. When it comes to saying more about why I read it, initially, it was for a very silly reason. I liked the cover, which depicts a man being lifted into the air by a beam of light from an unknown source. It looked really interesting, and I was pleased to find out that the book actually was. I'm glad it caught my eye. And I'm glad I had the chance to read it.

M: And what about your friends? Did they enjoy this book?

R: I haven't asked them if they've read it, to be honest. I don't know if it would be up their street or not.

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