Advanced 4A - Listening

Match speaker A to the topic they are talking about

• A book you started but couldn't finish

• A book you think should make a good film

• A book you feel you ought to have read, but haven't

• A book you decided to read after seeing the film or series

• A book you couldn't put down

Answer explanation

Well, I, I remember reading Catch Twenty-Two by I think it’s Joseph Heller. And I actually started it one night – it was, we’d gone to, France, to this campsite and they'd all gone to bed, so I went ahead and started it that night. And when I woke up the next morning,I just sat under a tree in the shade and read the whole thing from start to finish. Yeah, I think it's the only book I've ever done that with, didn’t do it before or since, yeah.

Match speaker B to the topic they are talking about

• A book you started but couldn't finish

• A book you think should make a good film

• A book you feel you ought to have read, but haven't

• A book you decided to read after seeing the film or series

• A book you were forced to read at school and didn't enjoy

Answer explanation

Yeah, yes, so there is a book that, well, it’s a, a book from my childhood and it’s called Carbonel, by Barbara Sleigh. And I always really feel that, well, you know, it’s got everything, it’s got… what’s it? It’s got a, a talking cat, a curse, there’s a witch, there’s loads of children. And I really just don’t understand why this hasn’t been made into a children’s film or even an animated film, really, to be honest. It’s, it’s just such a good story, and it’s got really great characters, and it’s, it’s a very visual book. So a lot of the things that it describes, you can, you can just sort of see it, and I think it’s a missed opportunity. I really think someone in Hollywood should definitely pick this one up.

Match speaker C to the topic they are talking about

• A book you started but couldn't finish

• A book you think should make a good film

• A book you feel you ought to have read, but haven't

• A book you decided to read after seeing the film or series

• A book you were forced to read at school and didn't enjoy

Answer explanation

Well, there’s been a couple of things recently that I’ve seen on television and then read the book afterwards, and one of those was Big Little Lies. So, that was turned into a TV series on HBO, I think. And another was on, it was a film on Netflix and it was called To all the boys I’ve loved before, which is a young adult book that I then went on to read afterwards, it wouldn’t usually be my thing, but I read the whole series of three books, it was fantastic.

Match speaker D to the topic they are talking about

• A book you started but couldn't finish

• A book you think should make a good film

• A book you feel you ought to have read, but haven't

• A book you decided to read after seeing the film or series

• A book you were forced to read at school and didn't enjoy

Answer explanation

So, there’s a book I’ve started a couple of times, it’s called The Silmarillion by Tolkien, and like, it’s sort of more information about the world that The Lord of the Rings saga happens in. But I just find the beginning so boring and I cannot finish it, and I know that a friend of mine has told me about some really interesting bits that come up later on, but I cannot get to them. I just keep reading about someone, son of someone and it gets really, really boring, really, really soon. So I think I’ll have to try again, but I still have not managed to get to the end of it.

Match speaker E to the topic they are talking about

• A book you started but couldn't finish

• A book you think should make a good film

• A book you feel you ought to have read, but haven't

• A book you decided to read after seeing the film or series

• A book you were forced to read at school and didn't enjoy

Answer explanation

I remember we had to read The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells, when I was at school. I was about ten at the time, and I remember thinking oh, this looks, you know, really exciting, ’cause I really, I really was into science fiction as a kid, and, and, the cover looked,you know, like, really exciting. So I thought this is going to be fantastic; we’re going to be, you know, doing something really this exciting, it’s, you know, we’re really lucky, but…I started it and oh, it was, it was just too hard for somebody, well I think if ten years old. The, the vocabulary was difficult; the sentences went on forever, it was really hard to follow them. And it was just frustrating because I was just sort of looking at the words and I sort of knew when to turn the page, but I hadn’t really remembered what I’d just read. So yeah, I didn’t get to understand the story at all, and I - the thing is, it sort of put me off H.G. Wells because I’ve not really read any since.

Match speaker F to the topic they are talking about

• A book you started but couldn't finish

• A book you think should make a good film

• A book you feel you ought to have read, but haven't

• A book you decided to read after seeing the film or series

• A book you were forced to read at school and didn't enjoy

Answer explanation

Well I’ve got to say, I’ve hardly read any classics at all, or any of those ones that win prizes, and, and stuff, that get reviewed in, in papers. So, like, I’ve never read To Kill a Mockingbird, for example, um, yeah, you know, all those, those classics. Think I’ve read one Jane Austen book. And I, I feel as if I should address this, maybe read some Charles Dickens or…and I just can’t concentrate on it, to be honest. It’s just…, and for me, reading is a way of switching off, so I don't really want to read anything that’s quite a struggle