Twenty-five Books That Shaped America
Written by Thomas C. Foster
Narrated by Sean Pratt
4/5
()
About this audiobook
Thomas C. Foster
Thomas C. Foster is the author of How to Read Literature Like a Professor, How to Write Like a Writer, How to Read Nonfiction Like a Professor, and other works. He 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.
More audiobooks from Thomas C. Foster
How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Reading the Silver Screen: A Film Lover's Guide to Decoding the Art Form That Moves Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5How to Read Literature Like a Professor: For Kids Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHow to Read Novels Like a Professor: A Jaunty Exploration of the World's Favorite Literary Form Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to Twenty-five Books That Shaped America
Related audiobooks
Studies in Classic American Literature Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5On Democracy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Odyssey of the West VI: A Classic Education through the Great Books: The Twentieth Century Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How to Read Novels Like a Professor: A Jaunty Exploration of the World's Favorite Literary Form Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What to Read and Why Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Read and Why Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You Are What You Read: A Practical Guide to Reading Well Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Writer's Library: he Authors You Love on the Books That Changed Their Lives Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life through Great Books Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Literature in our Lives: Talking About Texts from Shakespeare to Philip Pullman Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Semicolon: The Past, Present, and Future of a Misunderstood Mark Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Greek to Me: Adventures of the Comma Queen Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Great Short Books: A Year of Reading—Briefly Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5F Scott Fitzgerald - A Short Story Collection: A wonderful collection from the legendary American author of The Great Gatsby Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWonderworks: The 25 Most Powerful Inventions in the History of Literature Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How to Think like Shakespeare: Lessons from a Renaissance Education Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Count of Monte Cristo Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Art of the Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Horologicon: A Day's Jaunt Through the Lost Words of the English Language Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Thalia Book Club: Claire Messud's The Emperor's Children Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Young Goodman Brown Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of Reading Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How To Write Like Tolstoy: A Journey into the Minds of Our Greatest Writers Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The House of Mirth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Austen Years: A Memoir in Five Novels Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This Side of Paradise Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
Literary Criticism For You
The Conspiracy against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Daniel Kahneman's "Thinking Fast and Slow": A Macat Analysis Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Thalia Book Club: Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird 50th Anniversary Celebration Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Meet Me in the Margins Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/51984 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5One in a Millennial: On Friendship, Feelings, Fangirls, and Fitting In Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Don't Panic: Douglas Adams and the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fahrenheit 451 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pandora's Jar: Women in the Greek Myths Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Common Sense Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5To Kill a Mockingbird Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The World of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5On Writing (and Writers): A Miscellany of Advice and Opinions Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Catcher in the Rye Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lord of the Flies Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Wuthering Heights (Seasons Edition -- Winter) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5David Sedaris' Diaries Paint a Life Spent in Observation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies: How Doubting the Bard Became the Biggest Taboo in Literature Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Art of Subtext: Beyond Plot Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mythologies: The Complete Edition, in a New Translation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Summary: Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover: Key Takeaways, Summary & Analysis Included Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Shakespeare Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bad Feminist: Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book Thief Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Reading Life: The Joy of Seeing New Worlds Through Others' Eyes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Twenty-five Books That Shaped America
39 ratings5 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ok, I am persuaded. I will go back and try again to read those books I avoided in high school and college (except for Faulkner, and the ones I've already read.) Thomas C. Foster is my favorite lit fic professor. Here he presents those books that hung over our under educated heads through school as actual, enjoyable things to read. He opens them up and points at both the delightful and the problematic, a funny and approachable Virgil. My TBR list is longer now.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Despite what the title suggests, Thomas C. Foster's book “Twenty-Five Books That Shaped America” has more to do with shaping American literature than with shaping America itself, although one can certainly make the case (and Foster does) that a nation is shaped by its literature.To be sure, some of the books selected by Foster have had a direct impact on American culture. “The Grapes of Wrath” showed the haves what life was really like for the have-nots during the Great Depression. “To Kill a Mockingbird” changed, and continues to change, attitudes toward race in America, as well as attitudes toward those with mental or emotional disabilities. “The Cat in the Hat” changed American education, replacing Dick and Jane readers with books children actually enjoy reading and leading to “Sesame Street” in the bargain. Not all influences have been positive. Foster blames “Walden” for those misguided utopian cults that attempted to withdraw from society and be self-sufficient, as well as those individuals who have misread Thoreau and gone off into the wilderness without the skills or knowledge to survive.Yet in most cases, Foster concentrates on how certain works of literature have profoundly influenced literature that came later. “The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin” gave justification to all those subsequent creative, somewhat fictional memoirs. American mystery novels, especially those of the hard-boiled variety, continue to show the influence of “The Maltese Falcon.” “The Sun Also Rises” "taught America how to write." “On the Road” "reshaped the sound of modern prose." Virtually all American poetry, Foster writes, owes a debt to “Leaves of Grass.” A whole generation of black writers was influenced by “Their Eyes Were Watching God.” William Faulkner, in books like “Go Down, Moses,” inspired the work of Louise Erdich (“Love Medicine”), whose own work has in turn inspired other American Indian writers.Sometimes, as with “The Crying of Lot 49,” it isn't clear why the book made his list. One could surely make a better case for “The Carpetbaggers” or anything by Stephen King, for doesn't a widely read book have greater impact than one few people have read? But Foster likes it, and this is his book.Notice that Foster calls his book “Twenty-Five Books That Shaped America,” not “The Twenty-Five Books That Most Shaped America.” He says repeatedly that these are just the 25 books (actually more, since he includes two books by Robert Frost) he chose to write about. He could have mentioned others, and in fact he does at the end of the book. These others include the likes of “The Red Badge of Courage,” “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,” “Winesburg, Ohio,” “Babbitt,” “Native Son, “The Catcher in the Rye” and “The House on Mango Street.”He invites readers to form their own list of influential books. "Set your own standard for excellence and greatness," he writes. "Don't take someone else's word for it. Not even mine."Foster, author of those books with titles like “How to Read Literature Like a Professor,” has such a spritely writing style that most readers will enjoy even those chapters about books one has little interest in, like “The Crying of Lot 49,” for example.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Thoroughly readable and quite engaging. The author speaks directly to his reader, not at or down to. The reader is not some vague somebody - it is *you* and the author treats you as a *you." The author admits his biases quite openly when they appear, but doesn't seem to allow them to shape the book. My one qualm is some of the more recent titles are relatively unknown, therefore how much role can they have had in "shaping" America?
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Very 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 lesson when the canary dies?" Some of his selections stuck me as odd, and some have long been on my TBR list but most of them were old friends. Well worth reading.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Witty, entertaining and refreshingly irreverant. It will make you think about the books you have read and all the books you want to read.