Last night, my sister sent me a message: “The 1196 weather service will come to an end. So if you want to listen, today is the last _________.”

For 20 years, a caller could dial 1196, _________ an area and then hear the weather forecast read by a computer-spliced (电脑合成的) version of my father’s _________. This was the 20^th-century service that _________into the 21^st century. Soon, it would be _________ by the newly-developed weather app.

Dad’s love for the job was _________ my imagination. He stuck to making most of the recordings after he had cancer. I remembered _________ him to the recording room in my spare time. He would sit there for a whole day,_________ thousands of words with headphones on. He pronounced each word carefully. The _________ headphones and the precise pronunciation all took him back to his previous job as a radio journalist. And he was __________   of his voice. It sounded strong and held its fine timbre (音色) __________ he was in poor health.

The whole recording was really a large __________ with many sessions. In the end, Dad was too __________ to go to the recording room. __________, the sound engineer came to my parents’ house to __________ the last parts.

Finally, I plucked up(鼓起)the courage to dial the number to say another goodbye to my father.

For most people, graduation day is exciting. My graduation day, _______ was not.

I remember that weekend two years ago. My family and my friends had come to watch our class walk across that _______ . But like everyone in my graduating class, I had watched the economy _______ from bad to worse during my senior years. We graduates had _______ but very limited prospects (前景). Numerous applications were _______ and I knew that the next day, when my lease (租约) ended, I would no longer have a place to _______ “home”.

The weeks _______ were not easy. I drove to California to find work. But what I thought would _______ me a week dragged into two, and then four, and 100 job applications later, I found myself _______ I was before.

Days ________ like weeks, weeks like months, and those many months seemed ________ . The most ________ part was no matter how much I tried, I just couldn't seem to make any ________ .

Then I began to write. Something about putting words on a page made everything seem a little clearer—a little brighter. Something about writing gave me ________ .

I put my frustration into a children's ________ , one story of which was about a (n) ________ , a little fish, who, fighting in a “river”, ________ to give up his dream. I kept on writing. And then one day, ________ any sort of writing degree or contacts in the writing world—just a lot of hard work and perseverance—I was offered a publishing contract for my first book! After that, things began to be in place soon. I was offered a second book deal. Then a few months later, I got a (n) ________ with the Walt Disney Company and was hired shortly after.

The lesson of the story: Work hard, give it time and don't give up. Often our dreams lie in wait just a little further upstream. All we need is the ________ to push beyond the “river”.

“Bookshops are places to let your imagination fly high, with so many possible _________ to discover,” says Laura Iverson. She is one of the _______ at Darling Reads bookshop in West Yorkshire, England.

For Iverson, the _______ thing about working in a bookshop is suggesting new books to readers. “_______ beats that smile when they find the perfect book,” she says._________, when it comes to choosing the right one, she has some useful tips.

“Don’t feel you have to _______ a book because your friend likes it,” Iverson says. “ Stick to your own interests and choose what _______ you.”

She also _______ asking booksellers for suggestions because it could open your _______ to a new book or writer you would never have considered. “Bookshop staff are so ________ and absolutely love talking about books all day.”

Iverson says that one of her ________ books is Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. She remembers ________ reading it when she was around 12 years old, and not being able to put it ________. This is one of the things Iverson loves about reading. “No matter where you are, or what you’re doing, you can be ________ into another world, once you pick up a book that fascinates you, in just a few ________.”