You should say:
- what this book was
- why you decided to read it
- what reading this book made you think about
and explain why you enjoyed reading this book.
You will have to talk about the topic for one to two minutes. And You have one minute to think about what you are going to say. You can make some notes to help you if you wish.
As reading is my favorite hobby, I like to read as many books as I can. For this cue card, I’m going to talk about such a book that not only gave me a lot of pleasure but also made me think about life and my achievements in life.
When I was a student at A-level, I was given a reading list by my teacher in my college. That reading list contained the names of different blogs, written documents, and 30 books. One of the books was a short novel entitled ‘The Old Man and the Sea” written by the great American author ‘Ernest Hemingway’. It was written in 1951 in Cuba and was published the following year. I decided to read the book because one of my favorite teachers knew that I was a bookworm and recommend it highly.
The book tells the story of an old Cuban fisherman named Santiago who has lost all his fishing skills due to being old. He takes a daunting attempt to set out on a fishing trip into the wild sea one last time. Fortunately, he succeeds to catch a huge Marlin fish after 84 days but the Marlin is way too big for him to handle. However, Santiago does not let it go even though he is very weak and feeble. A great tug of war builds up between the man and the fish but Santiago wins. When he is returning with the Marlin, he has to tie it to his boat and keep it in the water as it is too big. Sharks get attracted by Marlin’s blood and start eating it. When Santiago finally reaches the shore, all which is left is the skeleton of the Marlin. However, the fishing community finds out about the matter and they praise Santiago for his courage and let him know that they would take him to fish with them.
The book gave me such pleasure and I was so worried about Santiago. When reading the book, I felt I was Santiago and I was doing my fight with the Marlin and the sharks. The book is a great source of entertainment and thought-provoking. We can learn that age is just a number if our determination is strong. If we try, everything is possible for us and Santiago is the greatest example of it. This book made me think about supporting old people and regaining faith in myself to move forward. We should never lose hope whatever the circumstance we face in our life. We should hope for the best and continue to do our good work. This is what I learned from this book. I also learned that no good result can be attained without hardship.