Reading good books is one of the greatest pleasures in life. It _______ our happiness when we are cheerful, and lessens our _______ when we are sad. A good book may absorb our attention so _______ that for the time being we forget our _______.

Whatever may be our main purpose in reading, good books should never fail to give us _______. With a good book in our hands we will never be _______. Whether the characters in the book are taken from real life or are purely _______, they may become our companions and make us laugh. The people we meet in books may _______ us either because they are similar to our close friends or because they present _______ types whom we are glad to welcome as new acquaintances. Our human friends sometimes ________ us, but the friends we make in books are always respect us. By turning the pages we can ________ them without any fear of hurting their feelings, When our human friends ________ us, good books are always there to give us sympathy and encouragement.

One of the most valuable gifts from books is ________. Few of us can travel far from home. ________ all of us can lead varied lives through the pages of book. When we wish to ________ from the dull realities of everyday life, a book will help us when ________ else can. To travel by book we don’t have to ________ and save a lot of money. Through books we may gel the thrill of adventure without ________. We can climb high mountains or cross the hoi sands of the desert, ________, through books the whole world is ours for the asking. The ________ of our literary experiences are almost unlimited.

I was given the book Running on Faith written by Jason Lester as a birthday gift last month. After I started ________, I really couldn’t keep my eyes off it. It is always ________ to read a story of someone who has gone through difficulties to reach his ________.

Jason Lester is a ________ extreme athlete. When he was twelve years old, a fast car ran a red light and ________ him. Then he was sent into the hospital with twenty broken bones and a(n) ________ injured arm. Jason had always ________ to become a famous baseball player, but at that time that dream was ________.

However, Jason loved sports and he still wanted to be a good ________. He began running and ________ duathlons (铁人两项比赛) in high school. Years later in 2004, he decided to start ________ for the Ironman (铁人), and has competed in many extreme ________ since then. In 2008, Jason became the first disabled athlete to ________ the Ultraman (320 miles of biking, swimming and running), and it led him to an ESPY Award for Best Male Athlete with a Disability in 2009.

If you are in a bad ________ and don’t know what to do now, Running on Faith is a good book for you. If you love running and want to reach some race goals, this book is good for you, too. Anyway, this book is ________ reading for everyone who loves reading and wants to turn dreams into reality.

And that’s what she did. The next day, and the next.

Every day while Kate was ________ with her dad in hospital, she would read aloud to him while he ________ and listened. He would often have his eyes shut but he promised he wasn’t ________ and could hear every ________. Dad seemed as eager as she was to find out what happened in the next ________.

Now and again a nurse might make the rounds of the ________. But Kate’s dad just told her to ________ reading. Maybe he really was appreciating the book as much as he said. She had never felt so ________ to her father as she did when sitting reading to him. When she did at last come to the end of the book, she ________ her father she’d be back with another one the next day. But she never did get to read ________. Because that was the night he ________.

Days later Kate walked to a ________ with that book in her bag. It was a beautiful sunny day, but the world felt horribly lonely without her dad. Kate thought about the book. She knew books could bring us readers much. They could be exciting, or romantic, or scare us. They could either challenge us or help us. They could also take us all around the world, and ________. So much. So very much. Kate thought books should be ________. Then she stood up and walked away, ________ the book in the park. She hoped whoever read it next enjoyed it as much as her dad had.