Book Review: How to Read Literature Like a Professor is determinedly easy-going and laid-back, in an effort to belie the title and make college courses and the secrets of academia an open book. Foster throws in symbolism, referents, a little poetry, sources, myths, violence, weather, and just about everything short of the kitchen sink (I just checked the Index: no kitchen sink). And he works hard at making it all palatable. This is a simple introduction to the academic reading of "texts," addressing some of the points that academics actually would prefer not to discuss. For someone new to the subject and non-academics (like me), How to Read Literature Like a Professor is an easy place to start. For more experienced readers it's a nice refresher course with points that may have been forgotten, or are entirely new. A good book for a potential literature major to read the summer before going off to college, or for anyone who's about to begin a regimen of literary fiction. First warning: there are major spoilers galore for any number of famous and popular books within these pages. Second warning: Foster covers a lot of turf, so much so that late in the book I began to get a little impatient, but then again there's enough material on this topic that he could write a sequel. And he does not seriously cover critical literary analysis, such as feminist, socialist, Freudian, deconstruction, etc. etc. How to Read Literature Like a Professor won't help a lot with a Master's Thesis or change lives, but it will provide something to think about while reading books worth thinking about. [3½★]
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