The
New York
Times
bestselling author of
How to Read Literature Like a Professor
uses the same skills to teach how to access accurate information in a rapidly
changing 24/7 news cycle and become better readers, thinkers, and consumers of
media.
We live in an information age, but it is increasingly
difficult to know which information to trust. Fake news is rampant in mass
media, stoked by foreign powers wishing to disrupt a democratic society. We
need to be more perceptive, more critical, and more judicious readers. The
future of our republic may depend on it.
How to Read Nonfiction Like a Professor
is more careful, more attentive, more aware reading. On
bookstore shelves, one book looks as authoritative as the next. Online, posts
and memes don’t announce their relative veracity. It is up to readers to
establish how accurate, how thorough, how fair material may be.
After laying out general principles of reading nonfiction,
How
to Read Nonfiction Like a Professor
offers advice for specific reading
strategies in various genres from histories and biographies to science and
technology to social media. Throughout, the emphasis will be on understanding
writers’ biases, interrogating claims, analyzing arguments, remaining wary of
broad assertions and easy answers, and thinking critically about the written
and spoken materials readers encounter. We can become better citizens through
better reading, and the time for that is now.