Those who are used to looking through thousands of books in big bookstores may find Japan's Morioka Shoten a little strange. That's because this tiny bookstore that is located in Ginza, Tokyo sells only a single book at a time.

    Opened in May 2015, Morioka Shoten is the brainchild of Yoshiyuki Morioka. The experienced bookseller began his career as a bookstore clerk in Tokyo's Kanda district before branching out to open his own store. It was here while organizing book readings that he realized that customers usually came into the store with one title in mind. Morioka began to wonder if a store could exist by selling many copies of just one single book. In November 2014, he partnered with his two friends, to establish a unique bookstore with the idea of “A Single Room, A Single Book.”

    Like its offering, the bookstore is simple. The selections that are picked by Morioka change weekly and vary widely to attract customers with different interests. Recent choices include The True Deceiver, an award-winning Swedish novel by Tove Jansson, Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales, and a collection of artist Karl Blossfeldt's photography of plants. Morioka has also chosen books written by famous Japanese authors Mimei Ogawa and Akito Akagi.

    To highlight his only offering, Morioka often uses clever methods. For example，when selling a book about flowers, he decorated his shop with the ones that had been mentioned in the book. He also encourages authors to hold talks and discussions so they can connect with customers. Morioka says his goal is for the customers to experience being inside a book, not just a bookstore!

    Risky as the idea might seem, things appear to be going well. Morioka says he has sold over 2,100 books since he opened it. Things can get better considering that his bookstore is becoming increasingly popular not just among the locals but also visitors from other countries.

    A few years ago, my wife, Sue had some serious health problems. She had suffered surgery after surgery and had also put on weight. Diets had not helped her and she suffered constantly from undiagnosed pain. One day the whole family sat down and drew up a “wish list”. To our surprise, one of Sue's items was to run in a marathon. Given her history and physical limitations, I thought her goal was completely unrealistic, but Sue became committed to it.

    She began by running very slowly and every day she ran just a little farther than she did the day before. Soon she could run three miles. Then five. Sue kept practicing and longed to run in the St. George Marathon in southern Utah.

    On the big day, I parked our van near the finish line, waiting for Sue. The rain was steady and the wind was cold. The marathon had started over five hours ago. The fast and strong competitors had finished already. Several cold and injured runners had been transported past me, and I began to panic. The image of Sue, alone and cold, off the road somewhere, made me sick with worry.

    Another hour passed and I spotted a small group running up. As they approached, I could see Sue, in the company of three others, and a woman in her twenties was near Sue. It was obvious that they had become friends during the race. I could see her begin to struggle. But when the finish line came into sight, she confidently even happily picked up her pace the last hundred yards to the finish line. Few people were left to congratulate my wife. They openly praised and embraced her, “She made us believe we could do it,” her new friend stated.

    From then on, she was carrying herself differently. Her head was more upright. Her shoulders were squared. Her walk had a new confidence. Her voice held a new, quiet dignity. It was not as if she had become someone new; it was more as if she had discovered a real self she had not known before. It was perseverance that made her realize she was an undiscovered masterpiece with a million things left to learn about herself. She truly liked her newly discovered self. So did I.

    121min Adventure/Biography/Drama

    Storyline: A group of climbers start their final climb to the summit of Mount Everest，the highest point on Earth. With little warning，a violent storm strikes the mountain，swallowing the adventurers...

    Director: Baltasar Kormakur

    Stars:Jason Clarke, Ang Phula Sherpa, Thomas M.Wright

    Add to watchlist

    War Room

    120min Drama

    Storyline: Tony and Elizabeth Jordan, seemingly have it all--great jobs, a beautiful daughter, their dream home. In reality, their marriage has been a war zone. With guidance from Miss Clara, an older, wiser woman, Elizabeth discovers she can start fighting for her family instead of against them.

    Director: Alex Kendrick

    Stars: Priscilla C. Shirer, T.C. Stalligs, Karen Abercrombie

    Add to watchlist

    Straight Outta Compton

    147min Biography/Drama/Music

    Storyline: In 1987, five young men, using honest rhymes, put their frustration and anger about life into the most powerful weapon they had: their music. Straight Outta Compton tells the true story of how these cultural rebels（叛逆者）stood up to the authorities that meant to keep them down and formed the world's most dangerous group N.W.A.

    Director: F. Gary Gray

    Stars: O'Shea Jackson Jr., Corey Hawkins, Jason Mitchell

    Add to watchlist

    A Walk In The Woods

    104min Adventure/Biography/Comedy

    Storyline: After spending two decades in England, Bill Bryson returns to the US, where he decides the best way to connect with his homeland is to hike the Appalachian Trail. He travels with Katz, one of his oldest friends. The trouble is that the two have a completely different definition of the word, “adventure”. The real fun begins...

    Director: Ken Kwapis

    Stars: Robort Redford, Nick Nolte, Emma Thompson

    Add to watchlist

    As for old people, some of the applications are hard to use because they didn't grow up with them. They don't have simple models of how they should work, what to do when something doesn't work or where to go for help. We make it as easy as possible to be used for people who are not familiar with the technology.

    I think there is huge potential and we are designing it. The ability to connect to friends, who remember the same movies and news and music, is really important, especially as people get old. They end up in retirement homes and they aren't always close to their friends. Allowing the network to help them connect with friends and family is a really powerful thing.

    My mother is an enthusiastic user of the Internet，although it took me years to get her to use e-mail. She was born with normal hearing, but lost it when she was 3.She was totally deaf for many years, until age 53, when she got ear aids. They work really well. That is a big change for her. But before then, her friends couldn't call her on the phone, so they insisted she use e-mail to communicate with them.

    Young people don't even think of the Internet as technology. It's just there, and they use it. There's been a very interesting change in communications styles between old people and young people. There are some kids who are now in their teens and aren't willing to make phone calls. And they think of e-mail as old-fashioned and slow.

    The reason why teens don't make phone calls seems to be that they don't know what to say. When they call they often stop for a while. They don't know what to say，and there's this silence. On the other hand, texting is considered proper, and it's okay if you don't answer. You might have been distracted. It's not considered rude. But it is considered strange if you're in this kind of voice conversation and simply stop talking.

    Nature calms our stressed-out soul. Nature is the best medicine, but new research is showing how little time we need to set aside to harvest the benefits.

    In one new study, researchers tried to find the most effective "dose" (药剂) of nature within the context of normal daily life. As more doctors prescribe (开药方) nature experiences for stress relief and other health benefits — sometimes referred to as a "nature pill"— the study's authors hoped to make the details of these treatments clear.

    "We know that spending time in nature reduces stress, but until now it is unclear how much is enough, how often to do it, or even what kind of nature experience will benefit us," says lead author MaryCarol Hunter in a statement. "Our study shows that for the greatest payoff, in terms of efficiently lowering levels of the stress hormone cortisone (压力荷尔蒙激素), you should spend 20 to 30 minutes sitting or walking in a place that provides you with a sense of nature."

    A nature pill can be a low-cost, low-risk way to curb the negative effects of urbanization and indoor lifestyle. To find the most efficient dosage, Hunter and her co-authors asked 36 city citizens to have nature experiences of at least 10 minutes three times per week over eight weeks.

    Every two weeks, the researchers collected saliva (唾液) samples to measure levels of the stress hormone cortisone, both before and after the participants took a nature pill. The data showed that just a 20-minute nature experience was enough to significantly reduce cortisone levels. The effect was more efficient between 20 and 30 minutes, after which benefits continued to increase but at a slower rate.

    That fits with the findings of another recent study, which found that spending 20 minutes in an urban park can make you happier, no matter whether you use that time to exercise.

    For this study, 94 adults visited 3 urban parks in Mountain Brook, Alabama, completing a questionnaire about their subjective well-being before and after their visit. An accelerometer (加速计) tracked their physical activity.

    A visit lasting 20 to 25 minutes showed the best results, with a roughly 64% increase in the participants' self-reported well-being, even if they didn't move a great deal in the park. That last point is particularly positive, since it means anyone can benefit from visiting a nearby park, whatever his or her age or physical ability.

    "There is increasing pressure on green space within urban settings," said a UAB professor Gavin Jenkins. "Planners and developers look to replace green space with residential (住宅的) and commercial property. The challenge facing cities is that there is increasing evidence about the value of city parks but we continue to see the disappearance of these spaces."

For Adam Johnson, a potter from Brighton, the interest stirs (萌动) each spring. "It grabs a hold of me," he said. "I just get the desire to dig." Together with his shovel (铲), he is part of a larger movement. Around the world people are discovering the joys of an ancient practice: the digging of holes. TikTok videos of people digging purely for fun have been viewed millions of times. Instagram accounts devoted to the pastime have many followings.

Charlie Mone, a student at St Andrews University, was changed while digging on the beach in Gran Canaria last year. When he returned home, he founded the university's first hole-digging society. "I didn't think it would go anywhere," he said. Dozens of diggers regularly attend its events on East Sands Beach on the east coast of Scotland and the society's Facebook page has more than 300 followers.

Mone believes that that much of the appeal lies in the friendship working on a shared project in the sea air. "It's struck a chord (共鸣) with people," he said. "There's something therapeutic to just switching your brain off and digging a hole." At the end of each 1 session, the holes are filled in to prevent accidents.

Back in Brighton, Johnson, 38, is more of a lonely digger. "I have often started digging without an actual plan," he said. "Once I took out an unruly bramble (荆棘) and found some rock so I dug that out, then carried on a bit until I was in a good general digging rhythm. A few hours later my partner asked if I was coming in for dinner-the bramble had come out at breakfast and I found myself in a six-foot hole. The hole would become a sunken hot tub, but the digging would have been worthwhile anyway, he suggests. "There's something basic about it. And you find all kinds of buried treasure from people who had the garden before you. There's something magical about digging."