How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines - Softcover

Foster, Thomas C

Softcover

ISBN 10: 006232652X ISBN 13: 9780062326522

Publisher: Harper Large Print, 2014

Synopsis

Thoroughly revised and expanded for a new generation of readers, this classic guide to enjoying literature to its fullest--a lively, enlightening, and entertaining introduction to a diverse range of writing and literary devices that enrich these works, including symbols, themes, and contexts--teaches you how to make your everyday reading experience richer and more rewarding.

While books can be enjoyed for their basic stories, there are often deeper literary meanings beneath the surface. How to Read Literature Like a Professor helps us to discover those hidden truths by looking at literature with the practiced analytical eye--and the literary codes--of a college professor.

What does it mean when a protagonist is traveling along a dusty road? When he hands a drink to his companion? When he's drenched in a sudden rain shower? Thomas C. Foster provides answers to these questions as he explores every aspect of fiction, from major themes to literary models, narrative devices, and form. Offering a broad overview of literature--a world where a road leads to a quest, a shared meal may signify a communion, and rain, whether cleansing or destructive, is never just a shower--he shows us how to make our reading experience more intellectually satisfying and fun.

The world, and curricula, have changed. This third edition has been thoroughly revised to reflect those changes, and features new chapters, a new preface and epilogue, as well as fresh teaching points Foster has developed over the past decade. Foster updates the books he discusses to include more diverse, inclusive, and modern works, such as Angie Thomas's The Hate U Give; Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven; Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere; Elizabeth Acevedo's The Poet X; Helen Oyeyemi's Mr. Fox and Boy, Snow, Bird; Sandra Cisneros's The House on Mango Street; Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God; Maggie O'Farrell's Hamnet; Madeline Miller's Circe; Pat Barker's The Silence of the Girls; and Tahereh Mafi's A Very Large Expanse of Sea.

About this title

About the Author

Thomas C. Foster is the author of How to Read Literature Like a Professor, How to Write Like a Writer, How to Read Nonfiction Like a Professor, and other works. He is professor emeritus of English at the University of Michigan, Flint, where he taught classes in contemporary fiction, drama, and poetry as well as creative writing and freelance writing. He is also the author of several books on twentieth-century British and Irish literature and poetry.

From the Back Cover

Thomas C. Foster's classic guide--a lively and entertaining introduction to literature and literary basics, including symbols, themes, and contexts--shows you how to make your everyday reading experience more rewarding and enjoyable.

How to Read Literature Like a Professor helps readers discover the deeper meanings of novels, poems, and plays by looking at literature with the eyes--and literary codes--of the ultimate professional reader: the college professor. This revised and updated edition contains new chapters, new preface and epilogue, and updated teaching points developed over the last decade.

What does it mean when a literary hero travels along a dusty road? When he's drenched in a sudden rain shower? Ranging from major themes to literary models, narrative devices, and form, Foster provides us with a broad overview of literature--a world where a road leads to a quest and rain, whether cleansing or destructive, is never just a shower--and shows us how to make our reading experience more enriching, satisfying, and fun.

Edition details

• Publisher: Harper Large Print
• Publication date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 006232652X
• ISBN 13: 9780062326522
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 496