Laurie Rozakis

American Literature is a relatively new thing compared to other types of literature. It hasn’t always had the reputation that it possesses now. I mean, we have big names. We have important works. This was not always the case. At one time, Washington Irving lied about his identity due to shame in being an American Writer. It seems that every new generation wants to create a great American Novel, a book that encapsulates all of our issues and problems in an artful manner. However, we Americans have created works that have stood the tests of time.

This book is named “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to American Literature.” The book is straightforward. It gives you the tools needed to analyze literature in all of its different flavors. There are three major types of literature; Prose, Poetry, and Drama. The book talks about that and goes through major eras in our literature.

America’s first writers were the Puritans since the Native Americans did not have a written language. All of their myths and legends and stories were passed down through oral transmission. So this book is a sort of basic course in American Literature. It is exactly what it says it is. It makes for a good bunch of references and it provides a number of history lessons. If you don’t have a cultured bone in your body, this might be a good place to start out. The book gives a shorthand coverage of all of these things.

A lot of the chapters just cover one author in depth and explore their works. For example, Chapter 6 covers Edgar Allan Poe. It talks about his works and how they were received in his own day, along with talking about how groundbreaking the stuff he wrote was for the time. The end of each chapter has a section that summarizes the chapter.

Some pieces it includes in their entirety. The Declaration of Independence is one of those works. It also has some pieces of poetry, such as Annabelle Lee by E. A. Poe. The book was published in 1999 so there might be some stuff that the book missed, but this doesn’t really bother me all that much. The biggest disadvantage is that it is a printed piece of material and can’t be updated.

This book was pretty good, but it is difficult to condense the contents of it into this review, so I will stop trying. Perhaps I will read something else related to literature in this series.… (more)

I can't foresee an instance in which someone would absolutely need this book for a research paper unless they were homeschooled all their lives and suddenly go off to a college that requires them. Most of the advice in this book can be gleaned from school so in a sense the title is apt. I don't know what came over me when I bought it, but it was only eight dollars.

Anyway, the book was printed in 2004 so I can see how someone from 2017 might not be familiar with how to use the Dewey Decimal System. I can imagine this book being good for someone that had not gone to school for decades and wants to expand their skill sets or something along those lines.

The book contains plentiful examples of research papers and numerous bits of advice on things like time management and how to cite references. It also contains advice on how to pick topics. So if things like the internet didn't exist this book would be indispensable.… (more)