阅读理解Text 3If you’re heading for your nearest branch of Waterstones in search of the Duchess of Sussex’s new children’s book The Bench, you might have to be prepared to hunt around a bit; the same may be true of The Presidents Daughter, the new thriller by Bill Clinton and James Patterson. Both of these books are published next week by Penguin Random House, a company currently involved in a stand-off with Waterstones.The problem began late last year, when Penguin Random House confirmed that it had introduced a credit limit with Waterstones “at a very significant level”. The trade magazine The Bookseller reported that Waterstones branch managers were being told to remove PRH books from prominent areas such as tables, display spaces and windows, and were “quietly retiring them to their relevant sections”.PRH declined to comment on the issue, but a spokesperson for Waterstones told me: “Waterstones are currently operating with reduced credit terms from PRH, the only publisher in the UK to place any limitations on our ability to trade. We are not boycotting PRH titles but we are doing our utmost to ensure that availability for customers remains good despite the lower overall levels of stock. We do this generally by giving their titles less prominent positioning within our bookshops.In the meantime, PRH authors have been the losers - as have customers, who might expect the new titles from the country’s biggest publisher to be prominently displayed by its biggest book retailer. Big-name PRH authors may suffer a bit, but it’s those mid-list authors, who normally rely on Waterstones staff’s passion for promoting books by lesser-known writers, who will be praying for an end to the dispute.It comes at a time when authors are already worried about the consequences of the proposed merger between PRH and another big publisher, Simon Schuster - the reduction in the number of unaligned UK publishers is likely to lead to fewer bidding wars, lower advances, and more conformity in terms of what is published. And one wonders if PRH would have been confident enough to deal with Waterstones in the way it has if it weren’t quite such a big company (it was formed with the merger of Penguin and Random House in 2013) and likely to get bigger.“This is all part of a wider change towards concentration of power and cartels. Literary agencies are getting bigger to have the clout to negotiate better terms with publishers, publishers consolidating to deal with Amazon,” says Lownie. “The publishing industry talks about diversity in terms of authors and staff but it also needs a plurality of ways of delivering intellectual contact, choice and different voices. After all, many of the most interesting books in recent years have come from small publishers.”We shall see whether that plurality is a casualty of the current need among publishers to be big enough to take on all-comers.

阅读理解Text 2Communities throughout New England have been attempting to regulate short-term rentals since sites like Airbnb took off in the 2010s. Now, with record-high home prices and historically low inventory, there’s an increased urgency in such regulation, particularly among those who worry that developers will come in and buy up swaths of housing to flip for a fortune on the short- term rental market.In New Hampshire, where the rental vacancy rate has dropped below 1 percent, housing advocates fear unchecked short-term rentals will put further pressure on an already strained market. The state Legislature recently voted against a bill that would’ve made it illegal for towns to create legislation restricting short-term rentals.“We are at a crisis level on the supply of rental housing,” said Nick Taylor, executive director of the Workforce Housing Coalition of the Greater Seacoast. Without enough affordable housing in southern New Hampshire towns,“ employers are having a hard time attracting employees, and workers are having a hard time finding a place to live,” Taylor said.However, short-term rentals also provide housing for tourists, pointed out Ryan Castle, CEO of a local association of realter. “A lot of workers are servicing the tourist industry, and the tourism industry is serviced by those people coming in short term,” Castle said, “and so it’s a cyclical effect.”Short-term rentals themselves are not the crux of the issue, said Keren Horn, an affordable housing policy expert at the University of Massachusetts Boston. “I think individuals being able to rent out their second home is a good thing. If it’s their vacation home anyway, and it’s just empty, why can’t you make money off it?” Horn said. Issues arise, however, when developers attempt to create large-scale short-term rental facilities — de facto hotels — to bypass taxes and regulations. “I think the question is, shouldn’t a developer who’s really building a hotel, but disguising it as not a hotel, be treated and taxed and regulated like a hotel?” Horn said.At the end of 2018, Governor Charlie Baker signed a bill to rein in those potential investor- buyers. “The bill requires every rental host to register with the state, mandates they carry insurance, and opens the potential for local taxes on top of a new state levy,” the Globe reported. Boston took things even further, limiting who is authorized to rent out their home, and requiring renters to register with the city’s Inspectional Services Department.Horn said similar registration requirements could benefit other struggling cities and towns. The only way to solve the issue, however, is by creating more housing.“If we want to make a change in the housing market, the main one is we have to build a lot more.”

单选题Caravanserais were roadside inns that were built along the Silk Road in areas including China, North Africa and the Middle East. They were typically ____ 1 ___ outside the walls of a city or village and were usually funded by governments or __2___ .This word Caravanserais is a _3_____of the Persian word karvan, which means a group of travellers or a caravan, and seray, a palace or enclosed building. The Perm caravan was used to ___4_____ groups of people who travelled together across the ancient network for safety reasons, ____5_____ merchants, travellers or pilgrims.From the 10th century onwards, as merchant and travel routes become more developed, the ___6____ of the Caravanserais increased and they served as a safe place for people to rest at night. Travellers on the Silk Road ___7____ possibility of being attacked by thieves or being ___8___ to extreme conditions. For this reason, Caravanserais were strategically placed ___9____ they could be reached in a days travel time.Caravanserais served as an informal ___10_____ point for the various people who travelled the Silk Road. ___11_____ , those structures became important centers for culture ___12_____ and interaction, with travelers sharing their cultures, ideas and beliefs, ___13______ talking knowledge with them, greatly ____14____ the development of several civilizations.Caravanserais were also an important marketplace for commodities and ___15_____ in the trade of goods along the Silk Road. _____16______ , it was frequently the first stop merchants looking to sell their wares and _____17____ supplies for their own journeys. It is ___18_____ that around 120, 000 to 15, 000 caravanserais were built along the Silk Road, ___19____ only about 3000 are known to remain today, many of which are in ___20____.

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