随着国际教育越来越普及、学生的国际视野也越来越宽广，现在全国很多学校的A -Level课程都开始从最初的清一色理科&商科拓展开来，慢慢引入文科。作为一只在2017年的CIE A-Level English Language考试中拿到87% A的文科狗，现在我想要推荐一波书单！(放心这是良心安利……毕竟书都不是我写的...哈哈)
English Language作为传统大坑（划去）每年全世界的拿A率只有4-5%，所以很诚恳地建议大家趁着暑假早作准备，毕竟文科靠积累，需细水长流。
我的书单头号针对对象主要为：将要在下学年开始CIEAS Level English Language的学生。
其次，如果你属于以下范围，本书单可以作为参考！因为其中除工具书外的其他书完全可以当作休闲读物来看！保证提高英语水平（来自UCL的微笑）。
将要在下学年开始其他考试局English Language的学生。英语语言文学爱好者，或者单纯想提高英语水平的孩纸。今天分享的书单将针对Paper 2的写作。（比较长哈哈哈哈哈因为写作比阅读分析难提升。）
针对Paper 2的工具书：
（前俩都是叫威廉的人写的，憋问我为什么，而且后一个威廉是前一个的粉丝）：
入门篇
“The Elements of Style”by William Strunk Jr. & E.B. White
这个真的是业内出名的吧 (*/ω＼*) 基础中的基础！对于母语非英语的我们，我觉得会列为“强行推荐暴走推荐必读书目”。里面包含的写作要义从语法拼写到总体写作风格的指点都非常经典，大多数都应该严格遵守。我很喜欢一段话，觉得对于所有作者（特别是即将要写Paper 2 Imaginative and Argumentative pieces的小作者们）都很适用，在这里分享给大家：“In terms of craft, there’s no excuse for losing readers through sloppy workmanship. If they doze off in the middle of your article because you have been careless about a technical detail, the fault is yours. But on the larger issue of whether the reader likes you, or likes what you are saying or how you are saying it, or agrees with it, or feels an affinity for your sense of humour of your vision of life, don’t give him a moment’s worry. You are who you are, he is who he is, and either you’ll get along or you don’t.”划线句是我推荐这本书的理由，非划线句是我想和立志写作的学弟学妹共勉的东西。
加强篇
“On Writing Well”by William Zinsser
大家可以看着它写Paper 2的那个argumentative piece（被我和我的老师叫做boring piece，然而坏习惯不要模仿啊哈哈哈哈）！因为这本书全是在教非创意性写作。
这本书被作者本人认为是对The Elements of Style的补充。他自己认为这两本书的区别在于：The Elements of Style “was a book of pointers and admonitions: do this, don’t do that. 而他的书强调了”how to apply those principles to the various forms that nonfiction writing and journalism can take”。如果仅仅针对考试，大家可以着重阅读Part 1, Part 2和……Part 3里面的第13、14章节（分别关于游记和回忆录）。
这本书可能很难懂，但是暑假先看一遍，明年上学了再多看几遍，就没有问题了~
Creative Writing for Dummies by Maggie Hamand
大家可以看着它写Paper 2的那个imaginative piece（这是我最享受的一部分考试，虽然我觉得整个科目和考试都很享受）！因为这本书讲的都是创意写作。
这本书名字听起来跟玩儿一样，写得也很直白很可爱。大多数同学没有创意写作的经验或者基础，用这个入门会很快。但是如果仅仅针对考试，只需要读Part II，里面对于怎么写人物、场景、对话、情节、叙述、描写解释得很清楚。（本书的其他部分是指导如何出版英文小说的。嗯……不要问我为什么在看？
针对Paper 2的文学书
以下推荐均强调希望大家学习作者文笔。我觉得要做好Paper 2是不能急功近利地去追求什么考试技巧的，比如你不能强行套修辞或者强行抒情，很容易要么生硬要么cliche。写作贵在细水长流，希望有心在Paper 2拿好成绩的同学真的抓紧暑假开始阅读，当然在开学后还是不能放松（笑）毕竟这些都是我在学年内读的（又笑）。你好书看得多了，具有大美的文字体会得多了，自然比临时抱佛脚或是玩套路的人拿分高。A-Level English Language不是雅思托福，写作虽然有大致规则，但千万别套模板。
以下读物的叙述和描写两方面都非常棒，因此每本书第一句推荐的叙述或是描写……仅仅是相互比较之下的结果。
入门篇
“The Shadow of the Wind”by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
本书的叙述非常值得学习。
豆瓣得分9.0了解一下？这本书其实当时是英语老师逼我看的哈哈哈哈哈（她属于那种你完全不想产生任何反驳她的念头的人）但是我真的看进去了！总体来说，这本小说哥特风格浓厚，悬疑和爱情双线缠绕，但最具有文学意义的是主要人物的一生也是西班牙这个国家盛衰荣辱的“一生”。我运即国运，主人公们在荒芜中寻找希望，在遗忘书之墓祭奠传统印刷文化的故事……反正这主题打动我了呗（摊手）。
“Much like the arrival of Spanish trains, in those stolen yaers you never knew when the end of childhood was due.”
“Few things leave a deeper mark on a reader than the first book that finds its way into his heart. Those first images, the echo of words we think we have left behind, accompany us throughout our lives and sculpt a palace in our memory to which, sooner or later - no matter how many books we read, how many worlds we discover, or how much we learn or forge - we will return.”
“The Ocean At The End of the Lane”by Neil Gaiman
本书的描写非常值得学习。
Neil Gaiman可能是这个书单里面最著名的作家了嗯~o(*￣▽￣*)o 但是我推荐的这本书是他相对比较小众的一个。首先主角又是一个热爱书籍胜过一切的孩子哈哈哈哈哈（不知道为什么我一直在推荐爱书人的故事）。表面和深层次读出来是两个故事，但每个都关于成长。大人现实世界的残忍和小孩童心的对碰在这本书里体现得淋漓尽致；但是我最感动的一个sub theme是牺牲。
书里的人物描写非常美，有一句写Lettie Hempstock的曾经被我化用在了自己Paper 2的写作中（虽然我写的是威灵顿的纪念碑23333）：“Lettie Hempstock was standing at the bottom of the drive, beneath the chestnut trees. She looked as if she had been waiting for a hundred years and could wait for another hundred. She wore a white dress, but the light coming through the chestnut’s young spring leaves stained it green.”我觉得很多时候阅读一本好书来学习时，增加词汇量倒是其次，更重要的是学习native speakers怎么把最朴实的词活用到极致，也就是语言文字的运用。这个和学习语文是相通的。
景物描写和我下文要推荐的Rachel Joyce走的是不一样的风格，没有Rachel那么华丽，这里稍微简洁平实一些，但是非常明亮~“The golden glow dimmed, so slowly, and then it was gone, leaving only vanishing glimmers and twinkles in the bushes, like the final moments of the fireworks on Bonfire Night.”和 “Moonlight spilled on to the stairs, brighter than our candle flames. I glanced up through the window and I saw the full moon. The cloudless sky was splashed with stars beyond all counting.”是大家完全可以学习滴。
加强篇
“Fahrenheit 451”by Ray Bradbury
本书的叙述非常值得学习。
如果有一个消防员负责烧书、知识被禁止而垃圾媒体节目盛行的世界……那会是怎么样的？在我看过的所有反乌托邦作品里，这本书最充满希望。知识自由的代价，是由遗世独立的Clarrise、在烈火中涅槃的无名女人、明哲保身但其实坚毅又通达的Faber教授还有黑暗的焚书“消防员”体系中有良知而敢发声的Guy Montag守护的。 比起乔治奥威尔Animal Farm和1984里充斥的压抑和无力，这本书里的人大多都像光，无论微弱或明亮。
作者本身是文法家……难怪他的修辞这么打动人╮(￣▽￣”)╭
“School is shortened, discipline relaxed, philosophies, histories, languages dropped, English and spelling gradually neglected, finally almost completely ignored. Life is immediate, the job counts, pleasure lies all about after work. Why learn anything save pressing buttons, pulling switches, fitting nuts and bolts”（哎哎哎这动词这排比这长短结合用来给Paper 1练习分析都够啊不要跑）
“Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hands touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you're there. It doesn't matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.”（暗喻！象征！敲黑板）
（再次强调）他的用词并不华丽，但是句子的分量引人深思（这也是我们在Paper 2要学习滴！）：
“Ideas - written ideas - are special. They are the way we transmit our thoughts from one generation to the next. If we lose them, we lose our shared history. We lose much of what makes us human. And fiction gives us empathy: It puts us inside the minds of other people, gives us the gift of seeing the world through their eyes. Fiction is a lie that tells us true things, over and over.”
“The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry”
“The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy”
Both by Rachel Joyce
本书的描写非常值得学习。
和之前The Snow Garden一个作者。第二本是第一本书的延续，第一本就是中文版也很出名的《一个人的朝圣》。把这两本书用来和其他的推荐作对比，我觉得Rachel的描写是这些作家里最值得推崇的（尤其适合Paper 2 Imaginative Piece如果你选择了写descriptive piece！绝对要多看Rachel！），虽然情节方面可能略显平实，不那么戏剧化。她的自然景物描写非常动人，每一个细节都给出强烈的画面感。
“Sister Catherine showed me the last of the primroses and daffodils. She pointed to the blue haze of forget-me-nots beneath the sycamore trees. Soon the yellows of a spring garden will be replaced by white. There will be blossom on the hawthorn, banks of cow parsley. Peony buds sat tight as marbles. I would love to see them flower.”（这已经是很简短的一段……很长的小节在两本书里比比皆是，摘抄下来可以看一年哈哈哈哈哈）
除了景物之外，她对生活中琐事的描写能让人觉得那些事非常美妙。比如……你就说削桃子吧：“The glint of light on the blade, the nick in the flesh as the knife pierced it, the sudden overspill of sticky amber juice down her fingers and then on to the plate. After she had eased the knife once round, she put it down and held the peach between her two hands in order to prise it open. She twisted the top half away from the lower and pulled her hands apart so that the peach emerged in two glistening halves, one bearing the stone like a wet nut, the other showing a soft naked bed with pulpy ruby strings.”
其他有一些值得补充阅读的文学书，我不详细介绍，只列在下面供参考：
The Book Thiefby Markus Zusak
All The Light We Cannot Seeby Anthony Doerr
以上两本小说都以二战为背景，个人感觉还挺有历史感的……
The Language of Flowersby Vanessa Diffenbaugh
The Keeper of Lost Thingsby Ruth Hogan
这两本是现代背景，都是因为角度新颖而让人觉得眼前一亮。
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxyby Douglas Adams
我的老师最喜欢的一套书，科幻向的，而且也不难懂。

我承认English Language是一门学起来非常困难的A-Level科目，但是如果大家准备充分，就不必害怕。在准备这门考试的十个月内，我写完了整整6本厚胶套笔记本，一大堆的Paper 2……这样才拿到写作47/50的喂！短视地来说，希望这个书单里面的某些读物能够对你的Paper 2有帮助，使你的写作得到提升；从长远的角度看，希望这些书能够让你发现英语文字的美——而发现任何一种语言文字之美的最终目的，都是给你另一个爱世界的视角。