Once upon a time, a wealthy villager hid a huge piece of gold in a nearby rice field to protect it from robbers（强盗）.

 Many years later, the wealthy man died and no one else knew about the gold. One day , a poor farmer began to plough（犁）the field. After ploughing for some time, his plough struck（碰、撞）the long forgotten treasure.

    At first, he thought it must be a very hard tree root. However, when he went closer to look, he saw that it was a large piece of beautiful shining gold.

    Waiting until midnight, the farmer started to take the gold home. He tried to lift the gold but it was too heavy. He tried to pull it out with ropes, but it was so huge that he could hardly move it. He became frustrated and thought how lucky he was to have found treasure, but unlucky too, as he could not move it. He even tried kicking the gold but it would not budge!

    He sat down and began to use his head. He decided to break the gold into smaller pieces. This would enable him to carry the gold easily.

He thought to himself, “ I will use one part for my daily needs, I will save the second part for a rainy day. I will invest（投资）the third part in my farming business. I will use the fourth part to help the poor and needy.”

    Follow this, he calmly divided the huge piece of gold into smaller pieces. Finally, he took all the gold home easily and lived happily ever after.

    Many expressions(表达方式) we use in American English come from movies and books. Today we will learn some expressions from Lewis Carol's famous book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. This book is better known as Alice in Wonderland.

    The story is about a young girl falling for a long time down a rabbit hole. When she finally lands, she finds herself in a strange world. In this strange world are some of the most popular characters in children's books. Many of the expressions from the book have found their way into American English.

    The first character Alice meets is the White Rabbit. The White Rabbit is not a usual rabbit. Alice chases (追赶) after him, and that is where her adventures begin.

    In English, "chasing a white rabbit" means to chase an impossible dream. "Following the white rabbit" means you are in the middle of an unusual situation. This situation often challenges your thinking and changes your life. Like "chasing a white rabbit", "falling down the rabbit hole" means we get interested in something else and lose ideas about time.

    Later in the story, Alice is the guest at a tea party— a crazy tea party! There she meets the March Hare. The hare seems to be truly crazy. To be "mad as a March hare" means that someone is completely mad or crazy.

Using expressions from popular books can add special flavor(味道). And when used properly, they also show you have a deeper understanding of the English language.

    Laurence Kim Peek was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, on November 11, 1951. It was clear from an early age that he was not like other children. A medical scan(扫描) showed that the two halves of his brain were not connected in the usual way. As a result, Laurence developed an amazing memory. He started to read when he was two. He used to read books and put them back on the shelf upside down to show that he had finished them. He remembered everything he had read.

    He memorized quite a lot of information subjects such as History, Geography, Sports, Music and Literature. He also had an unbelievable ability with numbers and dates.

    To read more quickly, he read the left page with his left eye and the right page with his right eye. By reading the two pages at the same time, it took him less than an hour to read a whole book. By the age of 30, he had memorized around 12,000 books.

    However, he did not develop so well in other areas. He could not walk until he was four, and he had problems putting on his clothes and shoes His social skills were poor, and he was extremely sensitive(敏感的) about meeting new people. In 1984, Peek and his father met Hollywood film writer Barry Morrow. Morrow was fascinated by Peek and began to write a new play about Peek's experiences. The result was Rain Man in 1988, a film that won an Oscar for Best Picture. This changed Peek's life. He got used to being the centre of attention. He self-confident (自信的). He appeared on TV and travelled around the country with his father to develop awareness(意识) of his condition. Sadly, Peek died of a heart attack in 2009.

Whenever I'm invited to somebody's house for the first time, I'll take a close look at their bookshelves. What they keep on their shelves, in my eyes, is a reflection(反映) of their personal tastes and interests. The books on a bookshelf tell the story of a life.

My own shelves are a kind of road map through my life, telling a chronological tale. First up come my favorite childhood reads, like Water ship Down and His Dark Materials. The collection then moves on to teenage things I read in school — Nineteen Eighty-Four, The Handmaid's Tale and A Clockwork Orange. Finally, we come out of full-time education and enter the real world, and this part is a reflection of my professional( 职业的) life, from the first exciting days of their work experience to the present.

If you pointed to any book on my shelves, I could name the year I got it, where I was working, and probably where I was living at the time.

▲ It is an easy way to get to know about his hopes, dreams and interests. And a big part of that story is how we arrange our books, and get on with them. It's such a personal thing, different from each other. Some want to be with their books in every room, others have them on shelves, behind glass or simply lining their floors. Each home has a story to tell through the way they live with their books.

It's often said that what we read says something about who we are. The way we fill our bookshelves might also send a message about ourselves. From the pile of books on your bedside table to your well-organized shelves, whether we notice it or not, our book collections are telling a story before a single page has been turned.

The greatest source of inspiration for me has always been my father. Though he's been gone for 17 years, his 1 still resonate (产生共鸣). He taught me how to run my own race in life. But the most inspiring thing he taught me was to 2.

One incident is 3 in my mind. It happened when I was a teenager. My sister and I weren't very fond of a so-called friend of 4. Dad was a very generous man, and as he'd done with so many people, he'd given this fellow great help. But when he asked for a favor 5, the guy didn't deliver.

Dad's outlook (人生观) on most things was "Live and let live." In this case, however, his calmness 6 Terre and me, and we let him know it.

"How can you be nice to that man?" we said to him. "You've been so kind to him, and he's not being kind back. Why would you want to give him the time of day again?"

My father shrugged (耸肩) and said to us, " I do not bend my back with 7." I didn't get it at first, but over the years I came to understand the 8. Holding a grudge (怨恨) doesn't 9 the person you're angry with, but it changes you. It makes you heavier and gives you more weight to drag around.

After my father died in 1991, a (n) 10 came from a fellow I'd had a quarrel with years before to 11 his sympathy. He wrote: " I thought I'd tell you how sorry I am 12 the loss of your father. I know he 13 the world to you. I just wanted to let you know that you are in my thoughts."

Much moved, I wrote back. I thanked him for his 14. And then, because he'd 15 our disagreement, I recalled Dad's inspiring words. "I am my father's daughter," I wrote. "And like him, I do not bend my back with yesterday."

A doctor, a lawyer（律师）, a little boy and an old man were out for a Sunday afternoon flight on a small plane. Suddenly, the plane had engine（发动机） trouble. At last, the pilot took a parachute（降落伞） and shouted to the four people that they had better jump, and then he himself jumped out. Unluckily, there were only three parachutes left.

The doctor took one and said, "I'm a doctor. I save lives, so I must live." Then he jumped out. The lawyer then said, "I'm a lawyer, and lawyers are smart people in the world. I must live." He also took a parachute and jumped out.

The old man looked at the little boy and said, "My boy, I live a long and full life. You are still young. Take the last parachute and live in peace." The little boy handed the parachute back to the old man and said, "Don't worry, grandpa. The smart man in the world just jumped out with my schoolbag."