In George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, the storyline centers around three main characters: Eliza Doolittle, Professor Henry Higgins, and Colonel Pickering. Eliza Doolittle is a flower girl who is under the instruction of Professor Higgins and Colonel Pickering to learn proper grammar and phonetics. Eliza can be characterized as a very sensitive and emotional person. She seeks to be treated like a duchess by men. Her personality clashes (不相容) with the personality of Professor Higgins in an extreme way. Professor Higgins is an arrogant (傲慢的), work-obsessed expert in phonetics who views Eliza simply as an experiment. He is a bachelor who has never found a place for women in his life due to his obsession (痴迷) with language.

Colonel Pickering is a gentleman from India who is also an expert in language. He is gentler than Higgins and treats Eliza with respect while maintaining a professional interest in her. These three make up the main action of the play as Eliza learns speech of the upper class from them. She manages to pass herself off as a Hungarian princess at a formal party. This achievement makes Eliza give credence to the efforts of Higgins and Pickering. After experiencing the life in the upper class, Eliza settles for a lower-class life with a man who loves her for who she is and wants to marry her. After some small and unimportant disputes, Eliza and Higgins remain friends later. Other memorable characters include Mrs. Higgins who maintains an authoritative figure over her grown son and Mr. Doolittle who rises from a dustman to a respected speaker in the community.

I think that this is a good book because it shows that happiness can be achieved without wealth and fame. I highly recommend it due to its emphasis on grammatical and phonetic correctness.

Having your nose in a book might seem a little anti-social at times — but reading could actually make you a kinder, more considerate person, a study has found. Readers were more likely to act in a socially acceptable manner, while those who preferred watching television came across as less friendly and less understanding of

123 participants in the study were quizzed on their preferences for books, TV and plays at Kingston University, London. They were then tested on how much they considered people's feelings and whether they acted to help others. Researchers told the British Psychological Society conference in Brighton yesterday that fiction fans showed more positive social behavior.

Readers of drama and romance novels were also empathic, while lovers of experimental books showed the ability to see things from different directions. Comedy fans scored the highest for relating to others. The study suggested reading allows people to see different points of view, enabling them to understand others better.

The researchers added, “Exposure to fiction relates to a range of empathetic abilities. Engaging with fictional prose and comedy in particular could be key to improving people's empathetic abilities.”

However, the authors warned the study did not prove cause-and-effect. So it could be that reading causes positive behavior, or it could be that thoughtful, well-mannered people are more likely to prefer reading. So it is a good idea to pick up a book to begin your travel with the author. Each author will show how they would react to certain situations or confrontations through their characters. Everyone can view the same situation differently, and from 1001 different angles. The more you read, the much better you can understand other peoples' opinions.

Some people say that we are reading less than ever. In a sense, that’s true, at least for certain forms of writing. However, you might be reading a lot more than you think.

Although printed publications (出版物) still enjoy large sales, you can read many of the same materials online. Some books, magazines and journals can be found online. Blogs and other information resources (资源) can also be easily found. There are lots of materials to read on computer screens.

Reading habits are generally measured by the number of minutes spent in reading. You can also measure these habits by the number of pages. You might think that new television channels and online games, along with the Web surfing, might make people read less. The Internet does influence reading, but the results may be a bit of a surprise.

The Internet has influenced people’s reading habits. However, the time spent in reading books for pleasure doesn’t change a lot, although people are managing to read fewer books every year. In addition, many magazines and newspapers can be read online at any time. Many publications that are weekly or monthly in print form are updated (更新) much more quickly on the Web.

There’s no doubt that online reading has changed what we read and how long we read, and now we read most things less carefully. However, when you consider how much we read, we are still doing a lot. The biggest change is that the medium that we use to read has changed.