Twenty-five Books That Shaped America: How White Whales, Green Lights, and Restless Spirits Forged Our National Identity

Thomas C. Foster

HarperCollins, May 24, 2011 - Literary Criticism - 352 pages

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.

What people are saying

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - Murphy-Jacobs - LibraryThing

Ok, 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 ...

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - hardlyhardy - LibraryThing

Despite 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 ...

About the author

Tom Foster is Professor of English at the University of Michigan, Flint, where he teaches classes in contemporary fiction, drama and poetry as well as creative writing and composition. He has written several books on twentieth-century British and Irish literature and poetry and lives in East Lansing, Michigan.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Twenty-five Books That Shaped America: How White Whales, Green Lights, and Restless Spirits Forged Our National Identity
• Author: Thomas C. Foster
• Publisher: HarperCollins, 2011
• ISBN: 0061834408, 9780061834400
• Length: 352 pages
• Subjects: Literary Criticism / Books & Reading