How I Met Myself by David A. Hill

Level 3 Lower Intermediate

“And we went inside and shut out the night.”

One icy winter's evening in Budapest, John Taylor is on his way home from the office when a man runs into him and knocks him over. The man turns to say sorry and John is amazed at what he sees: the man is John's double. The double rushes away but leaves no footprints in the snow. Over the next year it becomes clear to John that the meeting was no accident and that his double has a very important message to give him. 

https://www.cambridge.org/jp/cambridgeenglish/catalog/secondary/cambridge-english-readers/how-i-met-myself-level-3-paperback

Biography

David A Hill trained and worked as a primary school teacher in the UK before moving into ELT; he has an M.Phil in Applied Linguistics from Exeter University. David has taught EFL full time in Italy and Serbia, and worked for the British Council for 18 years, 12 of which as the Council's state sector teacher trainer for Northern Italy. Since 1998 he has worked out of Budapest as a freelance consultant, travelling annually to around 10 different countries for work with students, teachers, teachers' associations, ministries and the British Council. He has worked for IATEFL since 1988, holding various posts in the Association, and is currently the Coordinator of the Literature, Media and Cultural Studies SIG. His main interests within ELT are the teaching of young learners and teenagers, materials development, literature in language teaching and teacher training. David spends half of his year writing educational materials.

Outside the ELT world David is a published poet and translator of poetry and a naturalist who has written many articles for professional journals on ornithology and botany. He plays guitar, piano, harmonica and sings in a gigging blues band, and is also a performer of traditional English folk song. He is an expert on Art Nouveau architecture and design, and is especially fond of William Morris.

https://www.cambridge.org/gb/cambridgeenglish/authors/david-hill

We've read about

Budapest

• https://www.budapestinfo.hu/en/top-sights

History

World War II in Budapest

• https://www.hungarianconservative.com/articles/culture_society/siege-of-budapest_wwii_winter-1944-1945_germans_hungarians_red-army/#:~:text=The%20fighting%20that%20went%20on,of%20Hungary's%20collective%20memory%20forever.&text=The%20Siege%20of%20Budapest%20lasted,of%20the%20Second%20World%20War

The 1956 revolution

• https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/bullet-hole-markers-at-the-hungarian-ministry-of-agriculture-building
• https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/z3h9mnb/revision/11
• https://www.rferl.org/a/remembering-the-1956-hungarian-uprising/30232267.html

Doppelgängers

 Dante Gabriel Rossetti, How They Met Themselves, watercolour, 1864

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doppelg%C3%A4nger

Useful language in the book

Talking about time

Prepositions

• https://www.woodwardenglish.com/prepositions-of-time-at-on-in/

Expressions

To be in time, to be on time, in the nick of time

 

• https://livexp.com/blog/in-time-or-on-time-the-difference-and-examples/?utm_source=blog-en&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=%2Fblog%2Fin-time-or-on-time-the-difference-and-examples%2F

To take time to do something

• https://vivatutor.uk/blog/taketimetardarllevar/

Giving advice

Should + infinitive

• https://www.aprenderinglesrapidoyfacil.com/2014/07/11/modal-should-and-shouldnt-en-ingles-explicacion-ejemplos-usos/

Had/’d better + infinitive

“Well, it had better go away from you very quickly” 

•  https://test-english.com/explanation/b1/had-better-its-time/

Audio

To download the audio for this book, look for the title in the following link and click on download:
https://www.cambridge.org/jp/cambridgeenglish/catalog/secondary/cambridge-english-readers/resources