As someone has already written, reading is the best way how to improve your
English – especially the vocabulary. It helped me too. Most of my favorite
writers have already been mentioned here – A. Christie
(I am collecting her books in English but it goes on very slowly , The
Alchemist by Coelho is great too. I also have it in MP3 in
Czech read by Marek Eben and it is nice. I love Pride and Prejudice by
Austen for its language and humor. Another great author was
Oscar Wilde (thank you Mr. Vít a lot for the stories by Wilde
here on the web
or J.D.Salinger (e.g. The catcher in the Ray),
R.Bach (e.g. Seagull)
I have just received a package from Englishbooks I ordered a week ago
(Terry Pratchett – The Colour of Magic – I tried to win
it in the competition here but I was not lucky ).
For those who learn English and like to read or listen in original, there are
two great webs, which help. I am not sure how it is here with links, so I hope
you won’t mind me placing two links here. The first one is www.gutenberg.org (there you can
find the original texts of books which are in public domain – so are free to
download (were written before 1923). And the second web is www.librivox.org – there the
volunteers place the books they read in English and other languages in MP3
format. The books are again those which are in public domain and are read by
ordinary people so not all of them are “professional like” but they are all
free again and you can download it and listen to it too. You will find there
many classics. BTW on librivox, the texts and descriptions are also
in Czech!
And if you like to listen to radio on internet, have a look at the webpage of
BBC Radio 7 – it broadcasts radio plays or book readings in
English. You can find there many famous books (e.g. crimes by A.Christie) and
listen to it.