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How to Read Nonfiction Like a Professor: Critical Thinking in the Age of Bias, Contested Truth, and Disinformation
The New York Times bestselling author of How to Read Literature Like a Professor uses the same skills to teach how to access accurate information in a rapidly changing 24/7 news cycle and become better readers, thinkers, and consumers of media.
We live in an information age, but it is increasingly difficult to know which information to trust. Fake news is rampant in mass media, stoked by foreign powers wishing to disrupt a democratic society. We need to be more perceptive, more critical, and more judicious readers. The future of our republic may depend on it.
How to Read Nonfiction Like a Professor is more careful, more attentive, more aware reading. On bookstore shelves, one book looks as authoritative as the next. Online, posts and memes don’t announce their relative veracity. It is up to readers to establish how accurate, how thorough, how fair material may be.
After laying out general principles of reading nonfiction, How to Read Nonfiction Like a Professor offers advice for specific reading strategies in various genres from histories and biographies to science and technology to social media. Throughout, the emphasis will be on understanding writers’ biases, interrogating claims, analyzing arguments, remaining wary of broad assertions and easy answers, and thinking critically about the written and spoken materials readers encounter. We can become better citizens through better reading, and the time for that is now.
We live in an information age, but it is increasingly difficult to know which information to trust. Fake news is rampant in mass media, stoked by foreign powers wishing to disrupt a democratic society. We need to be more perceptive, more critical, and more judicious readers. The future of our republic may depend on it.
How to Read Nonfiction Like a Professor is more careful, more attentive, more aware reading. On bookstore shelves, one book looks as authoritative as the next. Online, posts and memes don’t announce their relative veracity. It is up to readers to establish how accurate, how thorough, how fair material may be.
After laying out general principles of reading nonfiction, How to Read Nonfiction Like a Professor offers advice for specific reading strategies in various genres from histories and biographies to science and technology to social media. Throughout, the emphasis will be on understanding writers’ biases, interrogating claims, analyzing arguments, remaining wary of broad assertions and easy answers, and thinking critically about the written and spoken materials readers encounter. We can become better citizens through better reading, and the time for that is now.
336 pages, Paperback
First published May 26, 2020
206 people are currently reading
2854 people want to read
About the author
Thomas C. Foster
20 books365 followersThomas C. 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. Foster has been teaching literature and writing since 1975, the last twenty-one years at the University of Michigan-Flint. He lives in East Lansing, Michigan.
In addition to How to Read Novels Like a Professor (Summer 2008) and How to Read Literature Like a Professor (2003), both from HarperCollins, Foster is the author of Form and Society in Modern Literature (Northern Illinois University Press, 1988), Seamus Heaney (Twayne, 1989), and Understanding John Fowles(University of South Carolina Press, 1994). His novel The Professor's Daughter, is in progress.
Foster studied English at Dartmouth College and then Michigan State University, moving forward from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to the twentieth in the process. His academic writing has concentrated on twentieth-century British, American, and Irish figures and movements—James Joyce, William Faulkner, Seamus Heaney, John Fowles, Derek Mahon, Eavan Boland, modernism and postmodernism. But he reads and teaches lots of other writers and periods: Shakespeare, Sophocles, Homer, Dickens, Hardy, Poe, Ibsen, Twain.
Author photograph courtesy of HarperCollins.
In addition to How to Read Novels Like a Professor (Summer 2008) and How to Read Literature Like a Professor (2003), both from HarperCollins, Foster is the author of Form and Society in Modern Literature (Northern Illinois University Press, 1988), Seamus Heaney (Twayne, 1989), and Understanding John Fowles(University of South Carolina Press, 1994). His novel The Professor's Daughter, is in progress.
Foster studied English at Dartmouth College and then Michigan State University, moving forward from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to the twentieth in the process. His academic writing has concentrated on twentieth-century British, American, and Irish figures and movements—James Joyce, William Faulkner, Seamus Heaney, John Fowles, Derek Mahon, Eavan Boland, modernism and postmodernism. But he reads and teaches lots of other writers and periods: Shakespeare, Sophocles, Homer, Dickens, Hardy, Poe, Ibsen, Twain.
Author photograph courtesy of HarperCollins.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 137 reviews
June 13, 2020
This is a book that one needs to read more than once, a book to own. Since, a few years back, I started reading more nonfiction, I have had questions. How do we know that what we read is factual. How can biographies for the same person, have a different interpretation of the materials to be found. Why do some books have such lengthy introductions? With so many biased news mediums how do we know which ones are actually doing due diligence on their facts.
These are just some of the questions that were well answered in this book. The Washington Post gets a high rating for their reporting, and Fox news is likened to the National Enquirer. Do I need to say more?
He covers online sources, social media, nonfiction, autobiographys and biographies, memoirs, new journalism, creative non fiction, and political and presidential treatsies. Explains how biases are hard to overcome, seems people want to believe what they want to believe. Go figure! Facts that don't fit their views are disregarded. The Advent if fake news, or alternate facts.
As I said much is covered, easily explained, even some wry humor, but in the end it is up to the reader. Check sources and be open minded, not stuck in a bias. This is the onlyGareth Russell has chosen a handful of passengers on the doomed liner and by training a spotlight on every detail of their lives, he has given us a meticulous, sensitive, and at times harsh picture of the early 20th century in Britain and America. A marvelous piece of work.” —Julian Fellowes, creator of Downton Abbey
A riveting account of the Titanic disaster and the unraveling of the gilded Edwardian society that had created it. way to be truly, but more accurately, informed.
These are just some of the questions that were well answered in this book. The Washington Post gets a high rating for their reporting, and Fox news is likened to the National Enquirer. Do I need to say more?
He covers online sources, social media, nonfiction, autobiographys and biographies, memoirs, new journalism, creative non fiction, and political and presidential treatsies. Explains how biases are hard to overcome, seems people want to believe what they want to believe. Go figure! Facts that don't fit their views are disregarded. The Advent if fake news, or alternate facts.
As I said much is covered, easily explained, even some wry humor, but in the end it is up to the reader. Check sources and be open minded, not stuck in a bias. This is the onlyGareth Russell has chosen a handful of passengers on the doomed liner and by training a spotlight on every detail of their lives, he has given us a meticulous, sensitive, and at times harsh picture of the early 20th century in Britain and America. A marvelous piece of work.” —Julian Fellowes, creator of Downton Abbey
A riveting account of the Titanic disaster and the unraveling of the gilded Edwardian society that had created it. way to be truly, but more accurately, informed.
October 1, 2021
I really enjoyed Foster's voice in How to Read Literature Like a Professor. And I was hoping for another book just as useful and witty. While this one does contain some useful details, Foster also can't keep himself from bashing on Trump, right-wing media, and Creationists (oddly?). Unlike his book on reading lit, which I think is timeless, this will (and has) made the book very dated. Why didn't his editor at Harper make him pull out the political rants?
It's not just the rants, but overall I think his writing just isn't as polished and isn't as helpful in this one. Sadly, the very questions he raises in his chapter on how to interrogate a nonfiction text reveal flaws rampant within his own writing.
This needed several more drafts and many more insights before it should have hit the printer. Read Foster's book on lit, but skip this one.
It's not just the rants, but overall I think his writing just isn't as polished and isn't as helpful in this one. Sadly, the very questions he raises in his chapter on how to interrogate a nonfiction text reveal flaws rampant within his own writing.
This needed several more drafts and many more insights before it should have hit the printer. Read Foster's book on lit, but skip this one.
October 11, 2020
This is a really important topic, but it deserves a better book. The book's organization (ironically, since Foster spends some time talking about chronological and other methods for making sense of a nonfiction narrative) isn't that well laid-out or easy to grasp.
And his examples aren't well-chosen. They skew leftward, as does Foster's analysis of them, particularly when they talk about Trump. Foster writes, correctly, that "those biographies closest to the time their subjects lived are not top choices." He adds, "The lives of those less saintly, say politicians or muckraking journalists, may suffer in the opposite condition [of hagiography], as a writer with an ax to grind vilifies the subject based more on political affiliation or current prejudices than on objective analysis." Good point, right?
Except he undercuts himself by using Fire and Fury by Michael Wolff and Fear by Bob Woodward as examples - both published in 2018. I think discussing Trump is legitimate when writing about "fake news" and the politically charged ways that term is used to denounce science and journalism, but I got the sense from Foster's abundance of Trumpian examples that he just really wanted to write about lies from the Trump White House. Fine, but that's a different book than what this one purports to be.
Foster ends his Wolff/Woodward chapter, which was supposedly about the structure of nonfiction as well as fake news, with a parting shot of cherry-picked findings from the Mueller report, ending "So much for 'fake news.' Now, can we for crying out loud retire the term?" Um, no, not really. Fake news is a highly politicized contemporary discussion that's nowhere near being so neatly resolved. Foster's completely noncontroversial points about the chronology of nonfiction narrative would have been better served had he remembered his own advice and chosen older examples.
Finally, Foster writes glowingly about Stephen E. Ambrose's Undaunted Courage without ever mentioning the plagiarism scandal that sadly marred Ambrose's last year of life. (I did a search on my Kindle and no, Foster never gets around to talking about it.) This is a smaller quibble, but when talking about truth-telling in nonfiction, plagiarism from a well-established writer seems to be a relevant sidebar.
Anyway, I'll be so glad when the black hole of Trump no longer finds its way into every discussion. I'm so, so tired of it. Let's talk about something else. In the meantime, I'll be reading something else.
And his examples aren't well-chosen. They skew leftward, as does Foster's analysis of them, particularly when they talk about Trump. Foster writes, correctly, that "those biographies closest to the time their subjects lived are not top choices." He adds, "The lives of those less saintly, say politicians or muckraking journalists, may suffer in the opposite condition [of hagiography], as a writer with an ax to grind vilifies the subject based more on political affiliation or current prejudices than on objective analysis." Good point, right?
Except he undercuts himself by using Fire and Fury by Michael Wolff and Fear by Bob Woodward as examples - both published in 2018. I think discussing Trump is legitimate when writing about "fake news" and the politically charged ways that term is used to denounce science and journalism, but I got the sense from Foster's abundance of Trumpian examples that he just really wanted to write about lies from the Trump White House. Fine, but that's a different book than what this one purports to be.
Foster ends his Wolff/Woodward chapter, which was supposedly about the structure of nonfiction as well as fake news, with a parting shot of cherry-picked findings from the Mueller report, ending "So much for 'fake news.' Now, can we for crying out loud retire the term?" Um, no, not really. Fake news is a highly politicized contemporary discussion that's nowhere near being so neatly resolved. Foster's completely noncontroversial points about the chronology of nonfiction narrative would have been better served had he remembered his own advice and chosen older examples.
Finally, Foster writes glowingly about Stephen E. Ambrose's Undaunted Courage without ever mentioning the plagiarism scandal that sadly marred Ambrose's last year of life. (I did a search on my Kindle and no, Foster never gets around to talking about it.) This is a smaller quibble, but when talking about truth-telling in nonfiction, plagiarism from a well-established writer seems to be a relevant sidebar.
Anyway, I'll be so glad when the black hole of Trump no longer finds its way into every discussion. I'm so, so tired of it. Let's talk about something else. In the meantime, I'll be reading something else.
June 6, 2020
Thomas C. Foster begins this book with a rant and that should have been a warning enough to not proceed further. It's more of a commentary on how things are - lots of theory and few practical aspects. I don't want to know his opinion on how things are badly written with ulterior motives. He tries to cover US politics, sports, fake news, internet articles, journalism, social media, etc. He tries to cover too many things and fails in most of them. He discusses very few actual non-fiction books in detail as examples. May be my expectations were too high from this book but this not work for me.
August 12, 2020
Well laid out as to why you should be critical of all aspects of what you're reading in these Trumpian times where lies, manipulated data and misleading information is being passed off as truth and nonfiction.
Thomas C. Foster explored the historical contexts of nonfiction writing and reporting, keeping it interesting and well paced. He gets to also explaining why it's important to not ignore or throw away certain parts of texts especially when it comes to nonfiction. It's important while reading nonfiction, not to cut off the parts of texts we'd equate to the fat on the chicharron; parts like the prologue (my favourite part of any text), author's notes, footnotes, source texts, how data is collected, etc. All that shit is important when it comes to getting to the bottom of things; getting at the truth in nonfiction work.
I really like Thomas C. Foster's writing style. Although sometimes he does come across a little self-dick-riding celebrity-professor and sometimes he comes across a little: "open your eyes children! can you believe this shit!", it still makes for an enjoyable read. And, yes! Yes we can believe this shit Mr. Foster! We're living alongside the madness with you.
Other than that - it's an excellent read. I enjoyed the parts surrounding the mystique of Joan Didion and how she assisted in or directed the creation of a distinct nonfiction writing style. She's always been someone I've been curious about because I haven't read any of her work, even though I've heard her name and seen her books everywhere.
My favourite take away is at 64% where Thomas C. Foster states:
That shit is on point.
Thomas C. Foster explored the historical contexts of nonfiction writing and reporting, keeping it interesting and well paced. He gets to also explaining why it's important to not ignore or throw away certain parts of texts especially when it comes to nonfiction. It's important while reading nonfiction, not to cut off the parts of texts we'd equate to the fat on the chicharron; parts like the prologue (my favourite part of any text), author's notes, footnotes, source texts, how data is collected, etc. All that shit is important when it comes to getting to the bottom of things; getting at the truth in nonfiction work.
I really like Thomas C. Foster's writing style. Although sometimes he does come across a little self-dick-riding celebrity-professor and sometimes he comes across a little: "open your eyes children! can you believe this shit!", it still makes for an enjoyable read. And, yes! Yes we can believe this shit Mr. Foster! We're living alongside the madness with you.
Other than that - it's an excellent read. I enjoyed the parts surrounding the mystique of Joan Didion and how she assisted in or directed the creation of a distinct nonfiction writing style. She's always been someone I've been curious about because I haven't read any of her work, even though I've heard her name and seen her books everywhere.
My favourite take away is at 64% where Thomas C. Foster states:
"Fictional truth is entirely an internal matter. But a writer of nonfiction is not a novelist. Truth is not his to decide. Rather than merely assert, he must adduce evidence to convince us of the veracity of his claims. The evidence can be physical- anything from an email to a literal smoking gun- or reliable testimony."
That shit is on point.
April 16, 2020
At just thirty percent into How to Read Nonfiction Like a Professor, I knew I would be requesting that my school site purchase it for my AP English Language students. By the end, I had been completely blown away -- a feat not unsurprising considering my very high expectations going into this reading. I have been a fan of Foster's since I was first introduced to How to Read Literature Like a Professor many, many years ago. That book helped me organize my literature instruction into more digestible chunks for my high school students and helped me show them what I and other readers do when we read. This book is no different; it eases the reader in, first making sure we understand the importance of this endeavor, then exploring different types of nonfiction, and then modeling his own detailed analysis of two texts on nearly the same subject and the difference in credibility of each. Considering how many subgenres "nonfiction" contains, I didn't expect such an exhaustive study. When I realized just how much breadth was going to be packed into the book, I thought maybe the depth would suffer. I was pleasantly surprised by both counts; though the book was short enough to be read in one day (one full day of being quarantined during spring break, I should add, but just one day), I was still completely satisfied by the quantity and quality of everything he explored.
One of the things I love about reading Foster's books is that he is just as excited about literary analysis, poetry analysis, and, now, critical reading as I am, and it simply feels good to have that kind of company. It was rare that there was a book or essay I hadn't read or was not excited about remembering, and I appreciate that he provided a list of books mentioned in the text at the end of the book so that I can revisit the ones I love and read the ones that are new to me.
Meanwhile, he writes in a manner that is entertaining and accessible for students at the upper high school and beginning college levels. Much of what he points out to do while reading nonfiction is what I already teach my students to do, but it's the organization of those practices, the wonderful examples, and the lively voice that will make this book as valuable to the veteran English teacher as it is to students.
And, honestly, it's simply an important book for anyone participating in a democracy. Without critical thought and critical reading, democracy can't exist, so this book shouldn't JUST be in classrooms; it should be recommended to everyone by librarians and booksellers across the country.
One tidbit that probably will be glossed over by the majority of readers is that Foster mentions being part of a discussion group about Joyce's Finnegan's Wake in the early years of the internet. Well, when I was 14, in the early years of the internet, I was part of just such a discussion group. The web was not so populated back then, and Finnegan's Wake enthusiasts make up an even smaller group, so I think it is likely that we were part of the same group. There was one member who was particularly active and whose explanations revolutionized my ability to analyze literature. I credit his contributions with my development from a student who accepted her teacher's interpretations to one who created her own. I can't help but wonder if that member whose name I have long since forgotten was this author; if so, he had a hand in me becoming an English teacher and continues to have a hand in my professional development.
One of the things I love about reading Foster's books is that he is just as excited about literary analysis, poetry analysis, and, now, critical reading as I am, and it simply feels good to have that kind of company. It was rare that there was a book or essay I hadn't read or was not excited about remembering, and I appreciate that he provided a list of books mentioned in the text at the end of the book so that I can revisit the ones I love and read the ones that are new to me.
Meanwhile, he writes in a manner that is entertaining and accessible for students at the upper high school and beginning college levels. Much of what he points out to do while reading nonfiction is what I already teach my students to do, but it's the organization of those practices, the wonderful examples, and the lively voice that will make this book as valuable to the veteran English teacher as it is to students.
And, honestly, it's simply an important book for anyone participating in a democracy. Without critical thought and critical reading, democracy can't exist, so this book shouldn't JUST be in classrooms; it should be recommended to everyone by librarians and booksellers across the country.
One tidbit that probably will be glossed over by the majority of readers is that Foster mentions being part of a discussion group about Joyce's Finnegan's Wake in the early years of the internet. Well, when I was 14, in the early years of the internet, I was part of just such a discussion group. The web was not so populated back then, and Finnegan's Wake enthusiasts make up an even smaller group, so I think it is likely that we were part of the same group. There was one member who was particularly active and whose explanations revolutionized my ability to analyze literature. I credit his contributions with my development from a student who accepted her teacher's interpretations to one who created her own. I can't help but wonder if that member whose name I have long since forgotten was this author; if so, he had a hand in me becoming an English teacher and continues to have a hand in my professional development.
November 23, 2020
I picked up this book because I have enjoyed Foster's books on how to read literature, novels, and 25 books that shaped America. After reading this book, I think he should stick to fiction.
The book appeared to be rushed into print, probably motivated by the 2020 presidential election. The back cover of the book indicates that Foster has retired from teaching, but inside the book it indicates he is still a professor. In the back of the book, he lists the books that he discussed, and suggests the reader turn to the index for other books. The book contains no index. And two of the chapters in the book didn't make it into the table of contents. Apparently critical editing isn't as important as critical reading.
The advice he gives can be summed up thus: read critically, check sources, and be aware of bias on the part of the writer. That's it, in a nutshell. Of course, he takes over 300 pages to say that, which is an example of subtraction by addition.
Foster's typical humor comes through, but it's not enough to carry the book.
The book appeared to be rushed into print, probably motivated by the 2020 presidential election. The back cover of the book indicates that Foster has retired from teaching, but inside the book it indicates he is still a professor. In the back of the book, he lists the books that he discussed, and suggests the reader turn to the index for other books. The book contains no index. And two of the chapters in the book didn't make it into the table of contents. Apparently critical editing isn't as important as critical reading.
The advice he gives can be summed up thus: read critically, check sources, and be aware of bias on the part of the writer. That's it, in a nutshell. Of course, he takes over 300 pages to say that, which is an example of subtraction by addition.
Foster's typical humor comes through, but it's not enough to carry the book.
August 2, 2023
FINALLY FINISHED THIS STUPID BOOK. the author couldve just said “have some common sense” and he wouldn’t need to write anything else, because literally everything he talked about was just common sense. this book didn’t teach me how to read nonfiction like a professor. this was probably the most useless and annoying book i’ve ever read in my life.
August 2, 2023
brb gonna read some wikipedia articles and believe them to all be true, not check someone’s credentials, never read a nonfiction book, and give this dumb author an awful review on ratemyprofessor ❤️
June 5, 2020
Very informative I feel like I am a better reader after reading this
October 9, 2024
As someone who reads a fair amount of historical nonfiction and has an undergraduate degree in history, I picked this up largely to see if there were thoughts on sources or other elements that I should be more critically aware of and this book was honestly a bit hit or miss for me for that.
There was some great information on nonfiction structure like thinking about how titles and chapter organization can influence the way the information is presented. I also wasn't really familiar with the structure of more newspaper reporting so that was interesting. From my undergrad days, I'm quite familiar with checking sources and seeing what kind of biases are present but all of that is good information as well.
However, there is a ton of time spent on fake news and the tendency to believe anything that someone publishes on the internet and I get the concern and appreciate trying to tackle some of that, but it really dominates sections of the book in a way that lost my attention. I don't disagree with the points, but I didn't need them over and over again either. It felt a bit like the author's frustration with these issues meant that a lot more time was spent on them than this reader at least really needed.
Overall, if you either don't read a lot of nonfiction or want more information on ways to analyze nonfiction structure, this book is worth at least a listen to get some of the points. And if you want thoughts on ways to combat fake news or stats to point out to folks, helpful there as well. But I can't really see myself going back to reread it.
There was some great information on nonfiction structure like thinking about how titles and chapter organization can influence the way the information is presented. I also wasn't really familiar with the structure of more newspaper reporting so that was interesting. From my undergrad days, I'm quite familiar with checking sources and seeing what kind of biases are present but all of that is good information as well.
However, there is a ton of time spent on fake news and the tendency to believe anything that someone publishes on the internet and I get the concern and appreciate trying to tackle some of that, but it really dominates sections of the book in a way that lost my attention. I don't disagree with the points, but I didn't need them over and over again either. It felt a bit like the author's frustration with these issues meant that a lot more time was spent on them than this reader at least really needed.
Overall, if you either don't read a lot of nonfiction or want more information on ways to analyze nonfiction structure, this book is worth at least a listen to get some of the points. And if you want thoughts on ways to combat fake news or stats to point out to folks, helpful there as well. But I can't really see myself going back to reread it.
April 24, 2020
If you are a book lover this is a great read. The book covers many genres of books.
August 17, 2020
Not all that useful. Obvious moves about how to analyze nonfiction.
April 6, 2022
I am a fan of Thomas C. Foster's How to Read... Like a Professor and especially his 25 Books that Shaped America even when they were guilty of simplification or superficial analysis, but those prior weakness were amplified in this book. This would be fine given that this work is probably targeted at high school and early college students, but there are just superior options, such as Mortimer J. Adler's How to Read a Book. There are also works that are more technical and for pedagogical purposes like Everything's an Argument by John Ruszkiewicz and Keith Walters, which provide greater detail about how effective claims are structured and how reliability of sources and the evidentiary value of claims can be rigorously evaluated.
Foster also tries to trade on topicality in this work focusing heavily on rhetoric from and books on the Trump administration. He of course expresses concerns about the merchants of doubt and their flood the zone strategy, which he calls particularly nihilistic. I think greater emphasis on historical examples of political rhetoric from long settled issues would have been better selections. Even the use of Woodward & Bernstein's Watergate journalism is butting up against the modern era too much. I think a modern era section would be fine in a work like this, but it would need a lot more caveats and deeper discussions about political rhetoric and ideology. Foster's position as authoritative on these issues is unwarranted. This is given away by the fairly narrow range of contemporary and erudite political columnists whose work he selects (mostly a particular iteration of NYT Op-Ed writers like David Brooks and Maureen Dowd).
Despite the many issues with the work (I have failed to catalog all my points of criticism here), I did enjoy some of Foster's passing critical commentary on those loosely group in the New Journalism school: Capote, Wolfe, Thompson, Didion, etc. I think he undersold Wolfe a bit though. Moreover, there are helpful aspects of the work that many readers can benefit from, especially if they are less experienced in reading works of non-fiction.
Foster also tries to trade on topicality in this work focusing heavily on rhetoric from and books on the Trump administration. He of course expresses concerns about the merchants of doubt and their flood the zone strategy, which he calls particularly nihilistic. I think greater emphasis on historical examples of political rhetoric from long settled issues would have been better selections. Even the use of Woodward & Bernstein's Watergate journalism is butting up against the modern era too much. I think a modern era section would be fine in a work like this, but it would need a lot more caveats and deeper discussions about political rhetoric and ideology. Foster's position as authoritative on these issues is unwarranted. This is given away by the fairly narrow range of contemporary and erudite political columnists whose work he selects (mostly a particular iteration of NYT Op-Ed writers like David Brooks and Maureen Dowd).
Despite the many issues with the work (I have failed to catalog all my points of criticism here), I did enjoy some of Foster's passing critical commentary on those loosely group in the New Journalism school: Capote, Wolfe, Thompson, Didion, etc. I think he undersold Wolfe a bit though. Moreover, there are helpful aspects of the work that many readers can benefit from, especially if they are less experienced in reading works of non-fiction.
July 24, 2020
For a book titled "How To Read Nonfiction Like A Professor", this one has very few "How To" and "Like A Professor" elements to it. Foster refuses to move very far from his one central argument: that not all nonfiction is true, and that a reader must actively judge what he/she reads. As someone who has had the fortune of being trained by excellent professors, I can hardly believe that that is all there is to the topic. And even on that central idea, there was very little that I did not already know. I also found Foster's writing unengaging, and could skip large portions of text without the remorse I usually feel on doing this.
With all that being said, it introduced me to certain works which I have added to my Goodreads To-Read list.
1.5 stars for the book.
+0.05 stars for every book it introduced.
-0.25 stars for the disappointment it caused.
With all that being said, it introduced me to certain works which I have added to my Goodreads To-Read list.
1.5 stars for the book.
+0.05 stars for every book it introduced.
-0.25 stars for the disappointment it caused.
August 6, 2020
As many other AP Lang teachers have done, I set out to read this book as a resource for my classroom. Whereas the How to Read Lit book is an incredible resource for AP Lit, the How to Read Nonfiction book does not even come close for AP Lang. I can’t see myself using more than one or two chapters from this book, and even at that, I would probably replace them with articles that cover the information more effectively. Not only is this book severely lacking in discussion of rhetorical strategies and other skills important for AP Lang, but Foster’s usual wit is nowhere to be found. I would guess he wrote this book under pressure of a contract, because other than a political rant in the introduction, it’s completely lifeless. I’m disappointed that I wasted my time on it. If you are an AP Lang teacher, look elsewhere.
June 4, 2020
Theoretical stuff
August 5, 2021
My orange highlighter doesn’t work anymore
April 23, 2021
Mi intención era aprender a detectar las señales que nos mandan los textos a través de sus fuentes (o su ausencia), sus formas y sus dialéctica, pero he obtenido solo diez páginas de esto y unas 290 de análisis de la cobertura periodística de los actuales Estados Unidos, muy interesante para quienes busquen eso y no lo que prometía el título.
Si bien es cierto que el libro empieza bien, añadiendo 4 P a las típicas 5 W y 1 H (las iniciales en lengua inglesa de las preguntas que siempre debería cubrir una noticia) que analizan el fondo y la intencionalidad de las personas que escriben, enseguida se enreda en un maremagno de ensayos y conflictos periodísticos estadounidenses de los que soy desconocedor y que, a pesar de entender, me suponen un obstáculo para comprenderlos como ejemplo (eso sin entrar a analizar los sesgos y el hastío con los que los abordo).
Sí son reseñables las exposiciones de algunas ideas a las que ya había llegado antes de leer el libro, como que Internet ha terminado con la jerarquía del conocimiento al equiparar la opinión de la masa enfurecida con la de las personas expertas, o alguna novedosa (a pesar de su evidencia) como que el buen periodismo es el primer paso en la escritura de la mejor Historia, o que la actual polarización de los medios de comunicación y la política tapa la mayoría de posturas intermedias.
Para el lector ajeno a la actualidad estadounidense, el libro aporta unos breves conocimientos teóricos, resumibles en pocas páginas, y mucha información sobre Trump y la gente que le rodeaba durante su mandato que, en el mejor de los casos, me ha producido pereza mental para tramitarla.
Si bien es cierto que el libro empieza bien, añadiendo 4 P a las típicas 5 W y 1 H (las iniciales en lengua inglesa de las preguntas que siempre debería cubrir una noticia) que analizan el fondo y la intencionalidad de las personas que escriben, enseguida se enreda en un maremagno de ensayos y conflictos periodísticos estadounidenses de los que soy desconocedor y que, a pesar de entender, me suponen un obstáculo para comprenderlos como ejemplo (eso sin entrar a analizar los sesgos y el hastío con los que los abordo).
Sí son reseñables las exposiciones de algunas ideas a las que ya había llegado antes de leer el libro, como que Internet ha terminado con la jerarquía del conocimiento al equiparar la opinión de la masa enfurecida con la de las personas expertas, o alguna novedosa (a pesar de su evidencia) como que el buen periodismo es el primer paso en la escritura de la mejor Historia, o que la actual polarización de los medios de comunicación y la política tapa la mayoría de posturas intermedias.
Para el lector ajeno a la actualidad estadounidense, el libro aporta unos breves conocimientos teóricos, resumibles en pocas páginas, y mucha información sobre Trump y la gente que le rodeaba durante su mandato que, en el mejor de los casos, me ha producido pereza mental para tramitarla.
June 12, 2022
sometimes people just need to know that all you need is 'good judgement'
What you get are another form of lemming, where one type of crude propaganda is attacked by another type of coarse propaganda.
And that there is a lot of miserable stuff out there that makes way too much of the silly terminology going on like disinformation and critical thinking, which is a red warning label for, a particular type of criticism.
Someone said that you can't 'teach people to be critical unless you are critical yourself.'
And sadly when most people use the term, critical means nothing more than indoctrination. And one sees it when they bring it up with current cultural and political issues. Have you noticed that the word 'critical' is used in a lot with fads?
"When some theory has the prefix 'critical' it requires the uncritical acceptance of a certain political perspective."
---
"Criticism, according to Victorian cultural critic Matthew Arnold, is a disinterested endeavour to learn and propagate the best that is known and thought in the world."
and as i said before, it's merely having good judgement
and if you have deep conversations with your family, i think that's all the critical thinking one needs, and the sharp kids figure this out at five.
usually a stack of Mad Magazines helps speed up the process.
---
yes I'm suggesting that Al Jaffee gives people more skills than the author, or most of the school system.
because it's something to be figured out 'outside of school' or before school starts!
---
people seem to ask where the suggested readings or missing chapters are
and think it was such a rush job
hopefully his next book will be called
How to Sell your Soul Like a Professor
It's amazing how someone can try hard with earlier books, and then just do a lazy cash in that ruins his whole corpus.
What you get are another form of lemming, where one type of crude propaganda is attacked by another type of coarse propaganda.
And that there is a lot of miserable stuff out there that makes way too much of the silly terminology going on like disinformation and critical thinking, which is a red warning label for, a particular type of criticism.
Someone said that you can't 'teach people to be critical unless you are critical yourself.'
And sadly when most people use the term, critical means nothing more than indoctrination. And one sees it when they bring it up with current cultural and political issues. Have you noticed that the word 'critical' is used in a lot with fads?
"When some theory has the prefix 'critical' it requires the uncritical acceptance of a certain political perspective."
---
"Criticism, according to Victorian cultural critic Matthew Arnold, is a disinterested endeavour to learn and propagate the best that is known and thought in the world."
and as i said before, it's merely having good judgement
and if you have deep conversations with your family, i think that's all the critical thinking one needs, and the sharp kids figure this out at five.
usually a stack of Mad Magazines helps speed up the process.
---
yes I'm suggesting that Al Jaffee gives people more skills than the author, or most of the school system.
because it's something to be figured out 'outside of school' or before school starts!
---
people seem to ask where the suggested readings or missing chapters are
and think it was such a rush job
hopefully his next book will be called
How to Sell your Soul Like a Professor
It's amazing how someone can try hard with earlier books, and then just do a lazy cash in that ruins his whole corpus.
September 15, 2022
Professor Foster at one point mentions that journalists almost never get to decide the headlines published with their articles, but writers of nonfiction books do choose their titles, and must bear the responsibility of living up to it. It is ironic, then, that this book fails that test. I think the title starts with "How to" to identify it as part of a series of other books by the same author, dealing with poetry, literature, etc. Rather than learning how to read nonfiction more critically, I simply learned about this particular affluent, liberal, white man's opinions on a long list of different writers and political realms. While I happen to agree with most of the opinions he espouses, that is not what I was looking for in this book.
This book is actually an anthology of reviews of best selling books and thus, of their authors. There were a few tidbits that might be helpful to my own writing, such as not starting any sentences on the first page of a memoir with "I," but otherwise it was only useful to help me decide whether or not to read some particular other books. If you're a similarly positioned baby boomer fond of the words "bamboozled" and "hoodwinked," you might enjoy Foster's most recent "How to Read ... " book.
This book is actually an anthology of reviews of best selling books and thus, of their authors. There were a few tidbits that might be helpful to my own writing, such as not starting any sentences on the first page of a memoir with "I," but otherwise it was only useful to help me decide whether or not to read some particular other books. If you're a similarly positioned baby boomer fond of the words "bamboozled" and "hoodwinked," you might enjoy Foster's most recent "How to Read ... " book.
January 23, 2025
I really really liked this. I'm a pretty eclectic reader - but I didn't really get into nonfiction until college. I appreciated this deep dive into the form and art of nonfiction writing. It overlaps a lot with my professional study of media literacy and digital citizenship, and there were so many parts that I was like, YES! I need to highlight this! Except I was listening to the audio version. Still. Very informative, very interesting. If I was still in the classroom, I would totally use this to teach nonfiction with my students.
November 7, 2023
A certain someone was reading another book of this author (How to read fiction...) at school, which I skimmed and liked. When I saw this one at the second hand bookstore, thought why not? Nothing new on the Western front except for a few authors/books mentioned in the book to add to my list.
June 9, 2020
Alot of good information.
May 18, 2020
As other reviewers have mentioned, this book is written in a conversational, breezy style and introduces readers to various genres in nonfiction writing, including the news media. As such, it is a text best suited for advanced high school students or college freshman. Both the tone and the content, however, are less suitable for most upper-level university courses.
July 28, 2020
This is an insult to your intellect if you are over, say, twelve.
Ok, maybe 16.
Ok, maybe 16.
October 8, 2022
Where do I begin with this book? The first issue is of false advertising. If you're going to market your book as a "How to read" book, at some point you should probably teach people, you know, how to read different forms of nonfiction, preferably somewhere in the beginning. There is very little of that in the book. The main meat of the book, which goes through different forms of nonfiction writing simply describes the books and doesn't really teach you how to read them. I had to get to page 230 to get anything really useful (interrogating the books) which really should have been the first chapter.
The second problem is the overtly and weirdly placed political content, which I don't mind generally but the author should have just written a book about Trump and how horrible he is because he spends a good third of the book doing just that. The entire chapter on political writing, which is about 30 pages, is devoted to Trump. He mashes all this in with his equal hatred of Russia and their "interference" in the American election, taking the line that nothing was wrong in the US, and that Clinton was some sort of shoe in candidate with no horrible baggage (Iraq War, Libya, corruption, super predators) and if it hadn't been for Russia, she would be sitting in the Oval Office. This of course completely ignores the major issues currently racking the United States (expensive foreign wars, corporate takeover of every level of government, expanding gap between rich and poor, the opioid epidemic, environmental crises, etc), that it is an empire in decline and the fact that most people find Clinton to be repulsive and insincere. He really shows his age when he blames the internet for creating the spread of misinformation (p. 68). Ok boomer. It's your generation that got us Thatcher, Blair, Reagan, Clinton and Bush that led the world into a neoliberal dystopia that we are currently living in. Also there was plenty of disinformation campaigns before the internet, many of which were perpetrated by your intelligence communities which he seems to trust so much. The most hilarious part of this Russian interference, if it did indeed take place and had the effect of changing the results of an election, is that maybe the Americans are getting a little taste of their own medicine. Pretty hard to complain about something that you have done to literally every other country on the planet, including Russia. I would recommend that the author read Killing Hope by William Blum to see the path of despair and destruction that their country has brought to the earth since its rise to a superpower after the Second World War.
The other issue the author has is with sources of information. One line blew me away. He states on page 155 that "for all the abuse that mainstream media take from those on the loonier fringes, our major news sources are pretty trustworthy." The statement is simply laughable. He then goes on to state in his next point is that we should look at the source of the information and whether it is reliable and cites the tobacco industry and that we shouldn't be taking medical advice from them. This completely undercuts his previous point because all mainstream media in the United States is funded by Big Insurance, Big Pharma, the military industrial complex and Wall Street. His strange obsession with "experts" ignores the fact that during the leadup to the Iraq War all the experts were brought on the mainstream media and parroted the lies of the Bush administration and led the United States into a disastrous war. The experts also told us that there would be no crash in 2008 and that the housing market was rock solid. The author completely ignores the fact that experts can lie and that they can be paid off and pressured into doing what the powerful want.
This book doesn't know what it wants to be. Am I a "how to" book or a political commentary? Should I talk about how to read nonfiction, or should I yammer on about how Trump is so bad and that the internet ruined everything? Want a good book on how to read? Read "How to Read a Book" by Mortimer Adler and file this book in the disjointed, strange, falsely advertised section of your library.
The second problem is the overtly and weirdly placed political content, which I don't mind generally but the author should have just written a book about Trump and how horrible he is because he spends a good third of the book doing just that. The entire chapter on political writing, which is about 30 pages, is devoted to Trump. He mashes all this in with his equal hatred of Russia and their "interference" in the American election, taking the line that nothing was wrong in the US, and that Clinton was some sort of shoe in candidate with no horrible baggage (Iraq War, Libya, corruption, super predators) and if it hadn't been for Russia, she would be sitting in the Oval Office. This of course completely ignores the major issues currently racking the United States (expensive foreign wars, corporate takeover of every level of government, expanding gap between rich and poor, the opioid epidemic, environmental crises, etc), that it is an empire in decline and the fact that most people find Clinton to be repulsive and insincere. He really shows his age when he blames the internet for creating the spread of misinformation (p. 68). Ok boomer. It's your generation that got us Thatcher, Blair, Reagan, Clinton and Bush that led the world into a neoliberal dystopia that we are currently living in. Also there was plenty of disinformation campaigns before the internet, many of which were perpetrated by your intelligence communities which he seems to trust so much. The most hilarious part of this Russian interference, if it did indeed take place and had the effect of changing the results of an election, is that maybe the Americans are getting a little taste of their own medicine. Pretty hard to complain about something that you have done to literally every other country on the planet, including Russia. I would recommend that the author read Killing Hope by William Blum to see the path of despair and destruction that their country has brought to the earth since its rise to a superpower after the Second World War.
The other issue the author has is with sources of information. One line blew me away. He states on page 155 that "for all the abuse that mainstream media take from those on the loonier fringes, our major news sources are pretty trustworthy." The statement is simply laughable. He then goes on to state in his next point is that we should look at the source of the information and whether it is reliable and cites the tobacco industry and that we shouldn't be taking medical advice from them. This completely undercuts his previous point because all mainstream media in the United States is funded by Big Insurance, Big Pharma, the military industrial complex and Wall Street. His strange obsession with "experts" ignores the fact that during the leadup to the Iraq War all the experts were brought on the mainstream media and parroted the lies of the Bush administration and led the United States into a disastrous war. The experts also told us that there would be no crash in 2008 and that the housing market was rock solid. The author completely ignores the fact that experts can lie and that they can be paid off and pressured into doing what the powerful want.
This book doesn't know what it wants to be. Am I a "how to" book or a political commentary? Should I talk about how to read nonfiction, or should I yammer on about how Trump is so bad and that the internet ruined everything? Want a good book on how to read? Read "How to Read a Book" by Mortimer Adler and file this book in the disjointed, strange, falsely advertised section of your library.
July 18, 2022
Summary: Basic, more political than necessary, and full of long, extraneous examples from specific books.
I found this book about how to read nonfiction disappointing in a variety of ways. The information included was fairly basic. The elements the author recommended considering - biases from the author, sources, structure of the story, etc - are largely things I already consider automatically. Having written out the advice from this book will allow me to be more explicit about considering these points, which is of some small value. However, I was hoping for something more like the equivalent of college-level literary criticism. Instead, I thought this book would be appropriate for high school freshman.
The author spent a long time summarizing specific texts so he could give examples of simple concepts that didn't need that support. Because the author clearly had a political ax to grind with the selected material, this book will not be taught in high schools, which is a shame. It's also likely to alienate the Republican readers who I think could most use the author's advice on identifying reliable sources. Even as someone who generally agreed with the author, I found the digressions annoying. I also found his sense of humor hit-or-miss, a bit on the dad-joke end of the spectrum. I don't feel like I got much out of this and I wouldn't recommend it.This review was originally posted on Doing Dewey
I found this book about how to read nonfiction disappointing in a variety of ways. The information included was fairly basic. The elements the author recommended considering - biases from the author, sources, structure of the story, etc - are largely things I already consider automatically. Having written out the advice from this book will allow me to be more explicit about considering these points, which is of some small value. However, I was hoping for something more like the equivalent of college-level literary criticism. Instead, I thought this book would be appropriate for high school freshman.
The author spent a long time summarizing specific texts so he could give examples of simple concepts that didn't need that support. Because the author clearly had a political ax to grind with the selected material, this book will not be taught in high schools, which is a shame. It's also likely to alienate the Republican readers who I think could most use the author's advice on identifying reliable sources. Even as someone who generally agreed with the author, I found the digressions annoying. I also found his sense of humor hit-or-miss, a bit on the dad-joke end of the spectrum. I don't feel like I got much out of this and I wouldn't recommend it.This review was originally posted on Doing Dewey
July 21, 2021
The idea of being a professor has always appealed in many ways, although I've never got close to it in retrospect. Non-fiction is my interest in reading and I like to think of myself as someone who thinks critically, by which I mean critiquing not what passes for discussion in various parts. So I thought it was a good idea to check myself out by reading what Thomas C. Foster has to say.
Foster's book covers a broad range of media, from books to news and what he calls "emerging media." His method is to explain the fundamentals, what something is and isn't, and a conversational direct style that contains a bit of wry humor and a couple of challenging statements every so often. It's as if you're sitting around a fire somewhere, relaxing and conversing.
His examples are predominantly American, which is fairly normal for this kind of thing, and he references a wide range of writing, from musicians (Pete Townshend; Neil Young) to politicians (Donald Trump naturally gets and extended run) and various writers e.g. Joan Didion, Annie Dillard, Malcolm Gladwell, Christopher Hitchens among others.
As intended, Foster makes you think, particularly if you've read the book he's talking about and there are insights gained from comparing what you remember and what he's saying. I liked his explication of Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, amongst many others, and went out and bought Didion's The White Album, only partly read at this point but an excellent read.
So interesting, informative and sometimes quite humorous. An easy read.
Foster's book covers a broad range of media, from books to news and what he calls "emerging media." His method is to explain the fundamentals, what something is and isn't, and a conversational direct style that contains a bit of wry humor and a couple of challenging statements every so often. It's as if you're sitting around a fire somewhere, relaxing and conversing.
His examples are predominantly American, which is fairly normal for this kind of thing, and he references a wide range of writing, from musicians (Pete Townshend; Neil Young) to politicians (Donald Trump naturally gets and extended run) and various writers e.g. Joan Didion, Annie Dillard, Malcolm Gladwell, Christopher Hitchens among others.
As intended, Foster makes you think, particularly if you've read the book he's talking about and there are insights gained from comparing what you remember and what he's saying. I liked his explication of Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, amongst many others, and went out and bought Didion's The White Album, only partly read at this point but an excellent read.
So interesting, informative and sometimes quite humorous. An easy read.
Read
January 19, 2021Considering I am currently more in the mood to read non-fiction rather than any fiction (that isn’t Schitt’s Creek fanfiction) I thought it would be a good idea to read a book about non-fiction, to be on surer footing.
To be honest, there wasn’t a lot in this book that I didn’t already know, but it gave me some reassurance that I don’t swallow everything I read without thinking. If you are capable of critical thinking, this book isn’t a necessary read - but I found it an enjoyable one, and I suppose it never hurts to hone that skill. The focus on US American writing is a bit much at times, but you can tell the author is passionate about writing, and he has a knack of making me want to read most of the books he writes about.
To be honest, there wasn’t a lot in this book that I didn’t already know, but it gave me some reassurance that I don’t swallow everything I read without thinking. If you are capable of critical thinking, this book isn’t a necessary read - but I found it an enjoyable one, and I suppose it never hurts to hone that skill. The focus on US American writing is a bit much at times, but you can tell the author is passionate about writing, and he has a knack of making me want to read most of the books he writes about.
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