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

Thomas C. Foster

Feb 2014 · Sold by Harper Collins

About this ebook

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.

Ratings and reviews

I was forced to read this for my 11th grade English summer work. I have to say, this is an absolutely horrendous book. Not because I hate summer reading; in fact, I love reading. The book is written in a condescending, arrogant, pretentious tone. The author is drilling basic concepts into the reader's head and making it seem like the reader is some kind of idiot. The books and media he references in this book are incredibly out of date. I shouldn't have to feel stupid because he referenced a book from 1965 that I've never heard about. Not only that, but he spoils the entire book and tears it apart, so if I wanted to read the book he referenced, I can't. The book is bland, boring, and absolute garbage. Complete waste of money, and is just about 200 pages too long. He turns everything imaginable into a sexual undertone when it most obviously isn't, and draws out every reference and analyzation so much it becomes unbearable. This book sucks!

This work is a middle school level English class masquerading around like a college level book. The chapters simply state the obvious about parts of a story and then treat the reader like they just found the secret to the universe. His commentary trends towards being irrelevant and rambling. Almost every argument he makes is given as much support as an eclair left in a hurricane would to a house. If I turned in work of this quality I would almost certainly fail. The book would be nice as 5th grade material though.

This was assigned for my ap class, but i would recommend it to anyone trying to "figure out" literature. It encompasses comedy as well as intelligence to recognize patterns shown in every book.

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.