How to Read Nonfiction Like a Professor by Thomas Foster Book Review

“How to Read Nonfiction Like a Professor" by Thomas Foster was an enjoyable read. Its looser style of writing was a nice change of pace from your standard English text book. Foster's purpose in writing this book is to help people, in this day and age of limitless information, to discern what is fact from fiction. He does this in a clear, concise manner, not being as dense as standard textbooks. Foster uses a middle-to-high school level of vocabulary, allowing younger audiences to enjoy the book. 

Thomas Foster educates his audiences by going over a variety of English concepts and skills, including detecting bias, determining the reliability of different types of sources, and using critical thinking skills. Foster wants his audience to leave knowing how much of nonfiction is true, and how much of it is just the writer's interpretation on the subject. Today, with how much information is available at a moment's notice, deciphering the true from the false is a priceless skill to have. Furthermore, the book was made recently, so it uses real world examples. Particularly, politics. 

This is my only real gripe about the book. How often politics is used as an example. It's not my book, so I can’t tell him what to do with it, but I would have appreciated more variety in examples he provided. I enjoyed when he was discussing different biographies, and how each one's author puts their interpretation of the person they're writing about. Essentially, how 2 biographies about the same person can feel so totally different. I started skimming when he got to the media and trump, because I could just look up that stuff if I really wanted to hear how bad or good the people who write about Trump are. This is mostly prominent at the end of the book, so it doesn’t overstay its welcome for too long.