The book – the friend of people
Reading is in present a favourite leisure time activity
• Reading is closely connected with literacy and
education. From the very beginning people
wanted to be informed as well as they wanted
to keep knowledge for other generations.
• Firstly, they used hard materials like
stone tables, later they started to use silk,
leaves or papyrus. As the paper was invented,
people start to write longer texts and created
the first books called manuscripts – the hand
written books. They used ink and goose feather
for writing.
Why do people read?
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For pleasure and entertainment
Education and learning
To get information
Advice
Popularity of reading
• In the past reading used to be more popular,
nowadays it is still a popular activity among a group
of people, but majority of people prefer reading
newspapers or magazines to reading books
• Reading books is on decline from many reasons:
- books are rather expensive
- reading books is time consuming
- many books/novels have been filmed so people
rather watch films than read books
- in particular young people don´t like reading books,
it´s boring, they fancy doing other activities
Literature
• Can be divided into 2 categories: non-fiction and fiction
literature.
• Non-fiction books are read for information.There are:
Textbooks – educational books
Encyclopaedias – large books or set of books with facts about
different subjects
Dictionaries – books that tell us the meaning of words by
translating or explaining them
Biographies, autobiographies, memoirs – tell us about the life
of famous personalities
Self help books – give us advice in various fields (e.g. medicine
or DIY=do it yourself books)
Travel/history/art books – provide information about travelling /
history / the arts
Cookery books – contain recipes for cooking
• Fiction books are about imaginary people, places and events.
We can speak about 2 main types: poetry and prose.
• Poetry is written by poets who create poems or lyrics.
• Prose is written by authors/writers who can write various types
of genres. Readers can choose from tales, short stories,
novellas, romances, novels, spy/detective stories, mysteries,
science-fiction, westerns, thrillers, adventurous or historical
novels.
Short stories and novellas are shorter then novels, there are
fewer characters and the plot is simpler.
Novels can be larger – set of two or more books.
A story in a book can be set in an imaginary or real place and time
with imaginary or real characters. The plot is narrated by an
author or one of the characters or the main heroes. Talented
writers are excellent story tellers and they are able to keep the
reader in attention from the beginning to the end. Usually the
reader reads such books in one sitting.
Advantages of reading
• Reading books can have a positive effect on us:
- we can acquire new knowledge, information from books
- improve our imagination
- get better our communication skills, widen our vocabulary
- books make us think about different topics
- books amuse us
Where to get books?
• Books are available in bookshops (you can buy
them) or in libraries (you can borrow them).
Some libraries are free of charge, but most of
them charge a small fee for yearly membership
or for each borrowed book. If you want to be a
member of some library, you must
have a library card, pay some fee
and return the books on time otherwise
you should pay a fine.
Reading newspapers
• At present more people prefer reading newspapers or
magazines to reading books
• Why? It is not as time consuming as reading books,
articles in newspapers are shoter than stories in books
• THE PRESS – newspapers and magazines – they
have a great influence on public opinion and they also
influence the political life and political views.
Newspapers can be divided into:
• National – Pravda, SME…/ and regional /local/ - Liptov,
Ružomberský hlas
• broadsheets or serious/ and tabloids or popular
• Newspapers are published every day, some of them are
published even at weekends, magazines are published
once a week or a month
• Broadsheets are printed on large pages and are serious
in tone => they bring information that is serious and
objective => for example national and political news,
financial and economical news, sports news, the weather
forecast, crosswords, advertisements and so on. They
are usually published daily, and so we call them dailies.
• The tabloids – popular have a smaller size and bring
less serious news => they bring entertaining articles =>
they often discuss the personal lives of famous people –
gossip from the famous’ people lives, disasters, murders
• Magazines are usually published weekly, have more
pages than newspapers and are in colour.
We know women`s and men`s magazines containing
stories, articles on fashion, make-up, food and fitness,
cars, music, sport and so on
- Children`s magazines publish short fairy tales, short
poems, simple crosswords and so on.
• Journals – serious magazines – they publish articles
written by experts – e.g. doctors, scientists, teachers etc.
L.N.Tolstoy
Virginia Woolf
Mark Twain
Norman Mailer
Mario Puzo
Victor Hugo
Oscar Wild