How to Read Novels like a Professor: A Jaunty Exploration of the World's Favorite Literary Form

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of child sexual abuse.

Thomas C. Foster is a professor emeritus at the University of Michigan, where he taught literature and creative writing for 27 years before retiring in 2014. Foster earned a bachelor’s degree in English from Dartmouth College and a doctorate from Michigan State University. Although his academic focus has been American, British, and Irish literature of the 20th century, he is an expert in other literary periods as well. Foster is the author of several critically acclaimed books, including Understanding John Fowles (1994) and How to Write Like a Writer (2022).

Foster’s nonfiction educational guides now form a series, beginning with How to Read Literature Like a Professor (2003). Aimed at English majors, general readers, and high school English teachers alike, these guides unpack complex academic concepts in a fun, engaging manner. The books are structured as “how-to” self-help guides, providing useful tips on understanding, teaching, and writing literature. Informed by Foster’s teaching experience, the guides anticipate the questions that challenge students the most, answer them in accessible language, and include illustrative examples.

Like his other guides, How to Read Novels Like a Professor is narrated in Foster’s first-person