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

This book provided a handful of interesting things for me to consider (and a small list of interesting titles to check out later). However, as a literature major, the whole endeavor seemed a bit too elementary to be worth reading. The title should have been something akin to "How to Read Literature in Such a Way So as to Pass AP English Lit." Most of the concepts Foster discusses may be easily grasped through one critical read of a novel in a high school senior literature class.

The most enjoyable part of the book was the "case study" of "The Garden Party" by Mansfield; unfortunately for Foster, I simply mean Mansfield's short story. The story was fantastic, but it was quite easy to analyze the story and come to nearly as many supposedly "profound" conclusions as the author. In fact, I am only keeping this book for that story.

I would recommend this book to high school juniors and seniors (or even college students outside the English major). However, I would NOT recommend this book to a well-read individual, nor do I desire to read Foster's other book any longer.

It's an interesting, funny, and informative book that can give you ideas of how to interpret the literature you're reading, and even give you more ideas of what to read next. It's entertaining, and you learn more than you even realize until the next time you read a difficult novel.

My high school AP English teacher recommended this to our class. A lot of other people have addressed how great this book is for appreciating literature so I'll talk about another great aspect of it.

This literally should be every students bible for getting A's in English classes. I never understood how to break that B+ barrier on writing essays for english classes and then I read this and was enlightened. No matter if you are interested in sincerely analyzing literature or straight up b.s.ing your next english teacher this book is the key. Not only did I find success with it but I passed it on to my brother who is not the best student but after reading 50 pages found himself with an A in English every quarter.

In sum, this is it for understanding the minds of professors/teachers. Its pretty amazing how most students and adults don't know how to fully appreciate literature, or at least understand why great literature is what it is.

If you are preparing for the AP test or have always struggled with writing essays on interpretations of literature, this is the key, I promise.

This book is not just helpful for readers seeking to grasp common themes in literature, but it's also a boon to writings who seek to write more consciously.

I've written many of the discussed scenarios, and understood the meanings of them, but the point the author makes is that we all understand them on an instinctual level. It's when it's spelled out for you that you can contemplate and fully appreciate the story, or use it as a window to better communicate with a reader.

For instance, I doubt I'll ever again write a scene set around a table at meal time and not capitalize on a shared meal as being communion.

As a life-longer learner and literature major, I have spent years laboring over difficult, verbose, dry and authoritative texts that define and discuss literary symbolism. Reading too much deconstruction theory and word-specific analysis feels like getting so close to the words with a magnifying glass that the meaning of the words and sometimes the words themselves can no longer be deciphered. These tomes take seriousness to an exaggerated level, speaking down to the reader from great heights, perhaps the same heights Thomas Foster uses as an example from The Garden Party in How To Read Literature Like a Professor.

Suggestive of the second half of his title, A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines, Foster comes down from the heights of academia by speaking, not to his readers, but with them. And while this book is most suited to high school seniors or college freshmen as a friendly introductory text, it was delightfully refreshing to read. It felt good to put down the magnifying glass and see literature once again as basic and whole as it was meant to be. I felt as though I had pulled up a chair in Professor Foster's classroom and had been part of a conversation, albeit a directed conversation.

Is Foster's tone a bit arrogant? Sure it is - he is a college English professor and what's a good English professor without a little arrogance? Isn't that what we expect, after all? Are the concepts basic and used? Yes they are - there is nothing here that is new or revolutionary - but what a comforting feeling it was to walk again on a worn path.

Any non-student with the inclination to pick up this book on their own undoubtedly has a list of favorite authors and stories, and certainly will feel as though something is missing. But Foster repeatedly reminds his readers that a lot is missing from this book. As he explains, no book can encompass all of literary symbolism, or mention every story, novel, movie or poem worthy of mention. So although some readers might find his list of recommended readings somehow incomplete, it is nonetheless his list. As Foster points out very honestly, "I'm pretty sure I could have made this book, with not too much effort, twice as long. I'm also pretty sure neither of us wants that."

Fosters concept of literature as play and his own word-play are as refreshing as the cleansing rains he outlines in his chapter on weather. Two of the best lines are from the end of his book, his "Envoi":

"... don't wait for writers to be dead to be read; the living ones can use the money. Your reading should be fun. We only call them literary works. Really, though, it's all a form of play."

As students of literature one tends to forget this, trudging through tedious and unpleasant pages because we are told that we must master certain classics; a list of some English professor's doing. Foster further explains that, "... in fact literature is chiefly play. If you read novels and plays and stories and poems and you're not having fun, somebody is doing something wrong. If a novel seems like an ordeal, quit; you're not getting paid to read it are you? And you surely won't get fired if you don't read it. So enjoy."

Which is his whole point, if you don't like his style, his ideas or his words, don't read his book. Otherwise - enjoy.