Because of different reasons, I could neither go abroad nor attend a language course to improve my English．So, I finally d         to read books in English．I chose Irving’s novel A widow for One Year．
What was my experience like? Very challenging（有挑战性的）! At the b       , I tried to stop thinking in Chinese about what I was reading．I just kept reading i          of looking up the new words in the dictionary．At first it seemed to be i        to read and understand without using a dictionary, but then I began to get the meaning s       ．Finally, I was so interested in the wonderful characters and the surprising plot of the novel t       I completely forgot that I was reading the book in English.
R       this novel was very good for my English learning．I found that Irving’s way of writing was very clear and easy to reaD． This made me feel really satisfied and encouraged me to read m           other books (not only by Irving)．I discovered that when you read a book in English you will stop thinking in your mother tongue at some point．It’s just as if you were there, inside the story, among the characters who speak English in the book.
Reading Irving’s novel also enabled me to learn a large n            of new words and expressions used in different contexts．It is really a good w          to improve our English.