The Art of Reading: How to Understand Books. A Lively and Engaging Guide to Reading

As long as there are passionate readers interested in language, narrative, poetry, and literary creativity, literature will continue to exist. It may transition into the realm of digits, revert to handwritten manuscripts, transform into comics, or appear on screen, but it will not cease to be created. And read. This book, which has become an international bestseller, helps to view literature through the eyes of the most discerning of readers: a professor of literature, and elevate one's reading skills to a new level. In a lively and witty manner, Thomas Foster interprets the special language of fiction filled with symbols, images, parallels, and interconnections. Using the works of classics—Shakespeare, Goethe, Dickens, Dostoevsky, Orwell, Kafka, Hemingway, Nabokov, and many other writers and poets—he demonstrates how to see what is hidden between the lines and decipher many enigmas. An essential assistant for all who wish to understand the works of their favorite authors more deeply, as well as for students, aspiring writers, journalists, teachers, and literary critics.