You can just read literature. Academic literary analysis has always been a grift imo. Just completely useless nonsense. Doesn't mean that literature isn't enjoyable.
I recently read a book that would count as literary fiction (as opposed to genre fiction) for the first time in over a decade and I enjoyed it quite a lot.
Explain that to all of those suffering through the reading just to make a grade because it is part of the required list. If I read Scarlet Letter today, I would not enjoy it any more than I did then. I'm just not entertained by some love triangle in a religious uptight society. I get enough of that in my every day life, minus the love triangle. It's the same reason I don't want to watch Rosanne or King of the Hill--it's just too close to home
The book I read was Revelations by Erik Hoel. It was a mystery novel about consciousness researchers. But Hoel is a literature nerd as well and so wrote it in that style. Would perhaps come off as pretentious if not for the good execution.
I recently read a book that would count as literary fiction (as opposed to genre fiction) for the first time in over a decade and I enjoyed it quite a lot.