To develop one's taste in English，the most effective way is to read English books extensively. However, one may be at a loss to choose the appropriate books，especially as a beginner.I would like to share some of my experience.

    My first English novel was Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice，recommended by many English teachers and professors as an ideal book for English learners. But I had great difficulty in understanding the novel，let alone enjoying it. It's not the vocabulary that troubled me，but rather the way Austen constructs sentences，and her way of thinking，which seemed too remote to me at that time. My fading enthusiasm was much recovered after reading Hemingway's novel Farewell to Arms. I particularly liked his brief and lively style. So my first suggestion is，as a beginner, you'd better choose contemporary novels instead of classical ones.

    However，reading novels is not the only way to improve your English. English essays can at once inform you，entertain you, and improve your taste in English. The best example is Bertrand Russell's work. Its language is plain, yet you cannot help feeling the elegance and the unique sense of humor. His simple language enables his philosophy(哲理) within the reach of ordinary people. Here comes my second suggestion—essays are indispensable.

    Never follow other's opinions blindly，however famous or influential the person might be. As a saying goes，one man's meat is another man's poison. With that in mind，we are sure to find out our favorite writers through reading and develop our fine taste in English.

    Men are spending more and more time in the kitchen encouraged by celebrity (名人) chefs like Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver, according to a report from Oxford University.

    The effect of the celebrity role models, who have given cooking a more manly picture, has combined with a more general drive towards sexual equality and men now spend more than twice the amount of time preparing meals than they did in 1961.

    According to the research by Prof. Jonatahn Gershuny, who runs the Centre for Time Research at Oxford, men now spend more than half an hour a day cooking, up from just 12 minutes a day in 1961.

    Prof. Gershuny said, “The man in the kitchen is part of a much wider social trend. There has been 40 years of sexual equality, but there is another 40 years probably to come.”

    Women, who a generation ago spent nearly two hours a day cooking, now spend just one hour and seven minutes—a great fall, but they still spend far more time in the kitchen than men.

    Some experts have named these men in aprons as “Gastrosexuals (men using cooking skills to impress friends)”, who have been inspired to pick up a kitchen knife by the success of Ramsay, Oliver as well as other male celebrity chefs such as Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Marco Pierre White and Keith Floyd.

     “I was married in 1974. When my father came to visit me a few weeks later, I was wearing an apron when I opened the door. He laughed,” said Prof. Gershuny. “That would never happen now.”

    Two-thirds of adults say that they come together to share at least three times a week, even if it is not necessarily around a kitchen or dining room table. Prof. Gershuny pointed out that the family meal was now rarely eaten by all of its members around a table—with many “family meals” in fact taken on the sofa in the sitting room, and shared by family members. “The family meal has changed a lot, and few of us eat—as I did when I was a child—at least two meals a day together as a family. But it has survived in a different format.”

    The Marches were a happy family. Poverty, hard work, and even the fact that Father March was away with the Union armies could not down the spirits of Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy, and Marmee, as the March girls called their mother.

    The March sisters tried to be good but had their share of faults. Pretty Meg was often displeased with the schoolchildren she taught; boyish Jo was easy to become angry; golden-haired schoolgirl Amy liked to show up; but Beth, who kept the house, was loving and gentle always.

    The happy days passed and darkness came when a telegram arrived for Mrs. March. “Your husband is very ill,” it said, “come at once.” The girl tried to be brave when their mother left for the front. They waited and prayed. Little Beth got scarlet fever（猩红热）when she was taking care of the sick neighbor. She became very ill but began to recover by the time Marmee was back. When Father came home from the front and at that joyful Christmas dinner they were once more all together.

    Three years later the March girls had grown into young womanhood. Meg became Mrs. Brooke, and after a few family troubles got used to her new state happily. Jo had found pleasure in her literary efforts. Amy had grown into a young lady with a talent for design and an even greater one for society. But Beth had never fully regained her health, and her family watched her with love and anxiety.

    Amy was asked to go and stay in Europe with a relative of the Marches'. Jo went to New York and became successful in her writing and had the satisfaction of seeing her work published there. But at home the bitterest blow was yet to fall. Beth had known for some time that she couldn't live much longer to be with the family and in the spring time she died.

    News came from Europe that Amy and Laurie, the grandson of a wealthy neighbor, had planned to be married soon. Now Jo became ever more successful in her writing and got married to Professor Bhaer and soon afterwards founded a school for boys.

    And so the little women had grown up and lived happily with their children, enjoying the harvest of love and goodness that they had devoted all their lives to.

    The Olympic Games are well known and always receive the world's attention, but there has been another little-known Olympic event in the UK for hundreds of years. And it's an event which some say helped start the Olympic movement in this country. The Cotswold Olimpicks take place every year on a Friday in spring. They are held in a village in England known as the Cotswold. It isn't clear when the first event took place but some say it was as early as 1612.

    The Cotswold Olimpicks were the idea of a lawyer called Robert Dover but no one knows exactly why he organized the games. Some people say he wanted to encourage people to support their king and country. Another explanation is that Dover was keen (渴望的) to bring people together, in particular the rich and poor from the local community. Whatever the reason, the yearly games quickly became popular. People competed in familiar activities such as horse-racing, running, jumping, and wrestling; famous people of the time attended it and poets wrote about the celebrations. It is even said that Shakespeare mentioned the Cotswold Olimpicks in The Merry Wives of Windsor, though the play may have been written some time before the first games.

    As the Cotswold Olimpicks grew in popularity, a group of people known as the Puritans(清教徒) started to object to them for religious reasons, saying they encouraged bad behaviour. The games came to an end at the start of the English Civil War but in 1660 they were re-introduced. Over time they became more and more popular and there are records of 30, 000 people attending in one year. However, the games also attracted people who were more interested in the celebrations than the sporting events. Finally, they came to an end once again in 1852. However, this was not the end of the Cotswold Olimpicks. They were re-introduced again in 1966 and have since been recognized by the British Olympic Committee. Out of respect to their history, the modem games are watched over by a man dressed as Sir Robert Dover, riding on horseback and accompanied by a representative of King James I. Unlike the real Olympic Games, the Cotswold Olimpicks has only about two hours and they are followed by celebrations in the village.

    Honey (蜂蜜) from the African forest is not only a kind of natural sugar, it is also delicious. Most people, and many animals, like eating it. However, the only way for them to get that honey is to find a wild bees' nest (巢) and take the honey from it. Often, these nests are high up in trees, and it is difficult to find them. In parts of Africa, though, people and animals looking for honey have a strange and unexpected helper—a little bird called a honey guide.

    The honey guide does not actually like honey, but it does like the wax (蜂蜡) in the beehives (蜂房). The little bird cannot reach this wax, which is deep inside the bees' nest. So, when it finds a suitable nest, it looks for someone to help it. The honey guide gives a loud cry that attracts the attention of both passing animals and people. Once it has their attention, it flies through the forest, waiting from time to time for the curious animal or person as it leads them to the nest. When they finally arrive at the nest, the follower reaches in to get at the delicious honey as the bird patiently waits and watches. Some of the honey, and the wax, always falls to the ground, and this is when the honey guide takes its share.

    Scientists do not know why the honey guide likes eating the wax, but it is very determined in its efforts to get it. The birds seem to be able to smell wax from a long distance away. They will quickly arrive whenever a beekeeper is taking honey from his beehives, and will even enter churches when beeswax candles are being lit.

    Throughout history, music spread among people of different cultures. In today's technological advanced society, however, people spread music online, sometimes without an artist's permission. This can lead to many problems, and music companies are now cracking down on this practice. Sharing music online without permission is theft (盗窃).

    Sharing music online prevents recording companies from making money from their efforts. They say that sharing music online has resulted in a huge drop in profits and sales over the past 10 years. People who find music for free online are not paying for CDs or every MP3 downloaded. To truly understand the influence of music piracy (盗版) on creators, one must understand how many people are involved in the recording process. For the sale of each album, profits must be shared between musicians, sound engineers, music producers, managers, advertisers, and the company selling the product. Many people believe sharing music only affects the recording artist, but the reality is that sharing hurts business for all companies involved.

    There are many people who don't see the harm in sharing music online and even think they have the right to do it. One online blogger states that he originally paid for an entire CD and that he should be able to do with the material whatever he wants. While he may have legally paid for the music, he does not have the right to provide permission, which means people like the blogger are thieves.

    Although we don't spread today's music the same way we did before, there's no doubt that people around the world love to share music. However, internet piracy would prevent musicians from continuing producing albums for fear of theft. Therefore, if people want to continue listening to their favorite artists, they need to buy their music so that artists will make enough profit to continue their music careers.