Twenty-five Books That Shaped America: How White Whales, Green Lights, and Restless Spirits Forged Our National Identity
From the author of the New York Times bestselling How to Read Literature Like a Professor comes a highly entertaining and informative new book on the twenty-five works of literature that have most shaped the American character. Foster applies his much-loved combination of wit, know-how, and...
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From the author of the New York Times bestselling How to Read Literature Like a Professor comes a highly entertaining and informative new book on the twenty-five works of literature that have most shaped the American character. Foster applies his much-loved combination of wit, know-how, and analysis to explain how each work has shaped our very existence as readers, students, teachers, and Americans. Foster illuminates how books such as The Last of the Mohicans, Moby-Dick, My Ántonia, The Great Gatsby, The Maltese Falcon, Their Eyes Were Watching God, On the Road, The Crying of Lot 49, and others captured an American moment, how they influenced our perception of nationhood and citizenship, and what about them endures in the American character. Twenty-five Books That Shaped America is a fun and enriching guide to America through its literature.
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Format: paperback
ISBN:
9780061834400 (0061834408)
Publish date: 2011-05-24
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Pages no: 352
Edition language: English
Category:
Non Fiction,
Writing,
Essays,
History,
Reference,
Literature,
American,
Criticism,
Literary Criticism,
Books About Books,
Literary Fiction
Very enjoyable essays about 25 books which Foster thinks contribute to the US's national identity. It's hard to argue his point, especially when one is laughing so hard. Perhaps my favorite line in the whole book was in Foster's discussion of Little Women, where he says, "And who isn't ready for a l...
Of the 25 works included in the book, there were the expected ones, like Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans, Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huck Finn, Herman Melville's Moby Dick, Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, Walt Whitman's The Leaves of Grass, Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, Hawthorne's The Scarle...
Witty, entertaining and refreshingly irreverant. It will make you think about the books you have read and all the books you want to read.
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