The follow-up and companion volume to the New York Times bestselling How to Read Literature Like a Professor--a lively and entertaining guide to understanding and dissecting novels to make everyday reading more enriching, satisfying, and fun

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 readers 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 readers who want to get more insight, more understanding, and more pleasure from their reading.

Foster, Thomas C.

Thomas C. Foster, author of How to Read Literature Like a Professor, How to Write Like a Writer, and How to Read Nonfiction Like a Professor, among others, 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.