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Reading The World: Lesson 1

Ann Morgan discovered that her bookshelves were dominated by British and North American authors, with almost nothing in translation. This revealed a "massive, cultural blind spot" in her reading. She then challenged herself to read one book from every country in the world in 2012. Through this experience, she gained new perspectives and realizations about the diversity and complexity of the world, and how books can connect people across divides.

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Alena Golovachenko
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53 views

Reading The World: Lesson 1

Ann Morgan discovered that her bookshelves were dominated by British and North American authors, with almost nothing in translation. This revealed a "massive, cultural blind spot" in her reading. She then challenged herself to read one book from every country in the world in 2012. Through this experience, she gained new perspectives and realizations about the diversity and complexity of the world, and how books can connect people across divides.

Uploaded by

Alena Golovachenko
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Lesson 1

Reading the World


(from Ізотова Н. П., Тихомирова, О. В.
Голоси світу: читаємо сучасну літературу. Частина перша. Підручник для
студентів старших курсів факультетів іноземних мов. Київ: Вид. центр
КНЛУ, 2020).

Lead In
Close your eyes. Picture some bookshelves in your home (or, alternatively, in your
e-reader or other gadget). Which three titles first spring to mind?
What do your bookshelves tell about you?
Read the text below and find out what Ann Morgan discovered about herself by
looking at her bookshelves.

Ann Morgan is a British author. In 2012 she challenged herself to read a book
from every country of the world. In her 2015 TED talk she explained why she
decided to do that:

“It’s often said that you can tell a lot about a person by looking at what’s on their
bookshelves. What do my bookshelves say about me? Well, when I asked myself
this question a few years ago, I made an alarming discovery. I’d always thought of
myself as a fairly cultured, cosmopolitan sort of person. But my bookshelves told a
rather different story. Pretty much all the titles on them were by British or North
American authors, and there was almost nothing in translation. Discovering this
massive, cultural blind spot in my reading came as quite a shock.”

Discussion
Would you answer the question “What do your bookshelves tell about you?”
differently now?
Name some countries that…
…you have read books from.
…you haven’t read any books from but would like to.
Do you think you have a cultural blind spot?

In the end of her talk Ann Morgan explains what she has gained from her world-
reading quest. Read the excerpt below and say what her discoveries are.

“The books I read that year opened my eyes to many things. As those who enjoy
reading will know, books have an extraordinary power to take you out of yourself
and into someone else’s mindset, so that, for a while at least, you look at the world
through different eyes. That can be an uncomfortable
experience, particularly if you’re reading a book from a
culture that may have quite different values to your own.
But it can also be really enlightening. Wrestling with
unfamiliar ideas can help clarify your own thinking.
And it can also show up blind spots in the way you
might have been looking at the world.
When I looked back at much of the English-language
literature I’d grown up with, for example, I began to see
how narrow a lot of it was, compared to the richness that
the world has to offer. And as the pages turned,
something else started to happen, too. Little by little,
that long list of countries that I’d started the year with, changed from a rather dry,
academic register of place names into living, breathing entities.
Now, I don’t want to suggest that it’s at all possible to get a rounded picture of a
country simply by reading one book. But cumulatively, the stories I read that year
made me more alive than ever before to the richness, diversity and complexity of
our remarkable planet. It was as though the world's stories and the people who’d
gone to such lengths to help me read them had made it real to me. These days,
when I look at my bookshelves or consider the works on my e-reader, they tell a
rather different story. It’s the story of the power books have to connect us across
political, geographical, cultural, social, religious divides. It’s the tale of the
potential human beings have to work together”.

Vocabulary Practice

Task 1
Read the vocabulary units in the table below and add your own examples to the
ones that are given.
A blind spot is a subject or an area Even great scientists have their blind
about which one is ignorant or spots. I can speak English fluently but
prejudiced. grammar is my blind spot.

A mindset is a way of thinking This programme seeks to cultivate a


characteristic of a person or a group of humanitarian mindset.
people. He has a solution-oriented mindset.
They do not have a proper mindset to
discuss financial issues.
When something is enlightening, it This lecture has been enlightening.
provides us with a deep understanding That trip gave me an enlightening
or an insight. glimpse into Asian mindset.
When something is cumulative, it is Human activity results in cumulative
formed by or results from accumulation effect for the environment.
or the addition of successive elements. Do not underestimate the power of
cumulative efforts.
We used rounded in a variety of I am not sure I can give a rounded
contexts to say that something is opinion on the matter.
balanced, developed or complete. After the talk he was able to form a
rounded view of the project.
The upshot of something is its result The upshot of it all is that we’ll have to
or consequence. start from scratch.
The upshot of her argument was
To encounter something or someone Be ready to encounter numerous
means to meet unexpectedly, often in a obstacles.
conflicting situation. She was shocked to encounter such
hostile attitude.
A wordsmith is someone who uses Toni Morrison is an acknowledged
words expertly, usually a successful wordsmith.
writer. You son is a budding wordsmith: he’ll
turn into an author one day.

Task 2
Work in pairs. Ask each other the following questions and find out whether
you have anything in common in these areas.

What is your blind spot when learning languages?


Do you think you have a humanitarian mindset?
What kind of experiences would you call enlightening?
What is the typical cumulative effect of using gadgets, lack of sleep and
multitasking on you?
Add your own questions, using the vocabulary above.

Task 3
Read the citations from Ann Morgan’s TED talk. All of them contain phrasal
verbs. Find equivalents for them in your native language. Translate the sentences.

To work out / to end up After I’d worked out which of the many different
doing sth lists of countries in the world to use for my project,
I ended up going with the list of UN-recognized
nations, to which I added Taiwan, which gave me a
total of 196 countries.

To go about doing sth Having spent my life reading almost exclusively


British and North American books, I had no idea
how to go about sourcing and finding stories and
choosing them from much of the rest of the world.

To get hold of sth And when I tweeted at it about my project, it


suggested that I might like to try and get hold of
the work of the Panamanian author Juan David
Morgan.

Work in pairs. Think of a ridiculous book title and ask your partner how to find it,
as in the example:

I need to get hold of a book about (martial arts for dentists / gardening in
space / famous shopaholics). How do I go about finding one?

Task 4
Look at the idioms in the table below. Place the provided examples in a larger
context, as in the example below.

To tell a different story Your test results tell a different story.

Come as a shock The news came as a shock to him.

To face up to the fact Grow up and face up to the fact that parents can’t
solve all your problems for you.
From scratch She did it from scratch.

To go to great lengths They were prepared to go to great lengths to


achieve it.
To go out of one’s way You really went out of your way to help me.
I did a thorough revision before the test, I swear! – Your test results tell a
different story.

Check your Comprehension


Watch the whole TED talk online1 and answer the questions:

1. How did Ann Morgan compile her list of books to


read?
2. Why did she refer to herself as a “clueless literary
xenophobe”?
3. How did different people help her in her quest?
4. What did she mean by “privileged glimpses of some
remarkable imaginary worlds”?

Writing
If you were asked to recommend one book from your own country
for Ann Morgan to read, which one would you recommend?
Write a short post for a social network about it.

Project
Start your own reading project!
Another TED Talker, Lisa Bu2 reads books in pairs: e.g., about two
different people involved in the same event, or similar stories in
different genres or cultures. Different social media that specialize in books offer
challenges and games for involved readers.
Brainstorm ideas for individual reading challenges.
Choose one of the ideas you’ve generated and accept your own
book challenge

https://www.ted.com/talks/ann_morgan_my_year_reading_a_book_from_every_c
1

ountry_in_the_world
2
https://www.ted.com/talks/lisa_bu_how_books_can_open_your_mind

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