Twenty-Five Books That Shaped America

By: Thomas C. Foster

Narrated by: Sean Pratt

Length: 12 hrs and 1 min

Publisher's summary

From the author of the New York Times best-selling How to Read Literature Like a Professor comes a highly entertaining and informative new book on the 25 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 Antonia, 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.

©2011 Thomas C. Foster (P)2011 HarperCollinsPublishers

An book that will inspire you to others.

The author presents his current list of twenty-five books that shaped America. While anyone's list would differ, the discussion of the books he did choose, along with his reasons for their inclusion, introduced me to authors and works that were not included in my past reading lists. I have, due in large part to his recommendations, begun to add them to my literary repertoire. Mr. Foster provides a great service in this work.

Highly recommended for any age level - junior-high or above - although the detail of his survey of these works might be used as a "Cliff's Notes"-lite by students who may need to report on these works in school. Remember kids - plagiarism is bad.