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TWENTY-FIVE BOOKS THAT SHAPED AMERICA

Name: TWENTY-FIVE BOOKS THAT SHAPED AMERICA
Author: Thomas C. Foster
ISBN: 978-0-06-183440-0

HOW WHITE WHALES, GREEN LIGHTS, AND RESTLESS SPIRITS FORGED OUR NATIONAL IDENTITY

by Thomas C. Foster ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2011

A too-polite American Lit 101 primer.

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A genial guide to American literature from the bestselling author of How to Read Literature Like a Professor (2003) and How to Read Novels Like a Professor (2008).

Call this one How to Read the American Myth Like a Professor. For his 25 selections, Foster (English/Univ. of Michigan, Flint) gravitates toward texts that bolster the folksier conception of Americans: rough-hewn, individualistic, fun-loving but concerned about family, full of prejudices but generally assimilating. Those familiar themes are underscored by the familiar books included here: The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, Leaves of Grass, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Augie March are sacred texts of freewheeling independence; Walden and My Antonia are praise songs to nature and the heartland; Go Down, Moses, On the Road and The Crying of Lot 49 showcase the wildness of American experimentalism. Foster doesn’t mean to simplify these texts: In the better essays, he reveals Melville’s complicated moral territory and the politics that pushed John Dos Passos’ epic U.S.A. trilogy out of favor. When the author dedicates himself to close reading, as he does in chapters on Faulkner and Robert Frost, he unlocks plenty of insights. But with roughly 10 pages devoted to each classic, Foster is forced to generalize about the importance of each, making for bromides and upbeat interpretations. For instance, when he says a key message of The Grapes of Wrath is that “people can be generous and supportive and decent and even civic-minded when the profit motive is absent,” he’s not wrong, but he’s softening a novel that throws hard elbows at the profit motive. Many readers will wish they had a high-school English teacher as cheery and engaged as Foster, but that doesn’t make his choices feel any less outdated. He includes The Last of the Mohicans even though he admits that it’s a slog, and the most recent book on the list, Louise Erdrich’s Love Medicine, was published more than 25 yeas ago.

A too-polite American Lit 101 primer.

Pub Date: June 1, 2011

ISBN: 978-0-06-183440-0

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2011

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
HOW TO WRITE LIKE A WRITER
by Thomas C. Foster

- BOOK REVIEW
HOW TO READ LITERATURE LIKE A PROFESSOR
by Thomas C. Foster

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.