Reading Novels Book

In the 1990s I had enough sense as an aspiring writer to recognize that literary criticism was not going to help me better learn my craft. My undergrad degree required a block of literary courses, however. I cheerfully avoided anything that resembled deconstructionism. I studied Black Literature, Literature of Montana Writers, Medieval Women's Writer, and took enough Middle English courses to become an expert on Chaucer. Now that I'm an MFA candidate, literary criticism has much to say about the history of novels, what came before, and why deconstructionism has (thankfully) fallen from grace. Literary criticism is now recognizing the roles of authors and readers. With that caveat, readers and writers can better recognize what literary criticism has to teach. And this is the book to do that.