How to Read Novels Like a Professor Audiobook By Thomas C. Foster cover art

How to Read Novels Like a Professor

A Jaunty Exploration of the World's Favorite Literary Form

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How to Read Novels Like a Professor

By: Thomas C. Foster
Narrated by: David de Vries
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About this listen

Of all the literary forms, the novel is arguably the most discussed...and fretted over. From Miguel de Cervantes's Don Quixote to the works of Jane Austen, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and today's masters, the novel has grown with and adapted to changing societies and technologies, mixing tradition and innovation in every age throughout history.

Thomas C. Foster - the sage and scholar who ingeniously led audiences through the fascinating symbolic codes of great literature in his first book, How to Read Literature Like a Professor - now examines the grammar of the popular novel. Exploring how authors' choices about structure - point of view, narrative voice, first page, chapter construction, character emblems, and narrative (dis)continuity - create meaning and a special literary language, How to Read Novels Like a Professor shares the keys to this language with audiences who want to get more insight, more understanding, and more pleasure from their reading.

©2008 Thomas C. Foster (P)2019 Tantor
Literary History & Criticism Social Sciences Words, Language & Grammar
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Not a how to at all

Rather than examining how to read a novel, the author shares his opinions on several novels. He expresses his opinions with snark and sarcasm, but the book lacks structure and his ideas lack cohesion. This book is more like a collection of book summaries made into short essays loosely converging around the theme of each chapter. It does not feel he has written this book for you the reader and your edification, but for himself, moralizing about what he values. A 'good' author, in Foster's opinion, is just an author he likes.

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