It's Lit!
A series of smart, funny video essays from PBS Digital Studios about their favorite books and why they love to read. Host Lindsay Ellis delves into topics like the evolution of YA, how science fiction mirrors our own anxieties, and why the book is sometimes just a _bit_ better than the movie.
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Cast
Seasons
1.When the Book is Better than the Movie
04-06-20186mWhich is better, the book or the movie? Explore the question with host Lindsay Ellis.
2.The Evolution of YA
26-06-20186mYoung Adult Fiction (YA) is dominating literature, and more young people are reading now than ever before. Lindsay Ellis explores how YA carved a place in publishing.
3.Why Sci Fi is a Mirror on Society
13-07-20186mWhile science fiction is associated with Mars, robots, and cyberpunk, its origin story is shaped throughout several centuries. Check out the origin of science fiction with Lindsay...
4.An Ode to the Romance Novel
30-07-20186mLove it or hate it, the romance novel is the highest grossing literary genre. Its history is long and winding (like your favorite romance novel), and romance novels are full of tro...
5.How Fantasy Reflects Our World
21-08-20186mFantasy novels are more than just hundreds of pages worth of swords and magic! Okay, there's some of that. But it's also a lens to what our society finds important to our pasts, ou...
6.Why did they make me read this in High School?
30-08-20186mWhat makes a book important? Why are some books required reading in high school, while others are lost to history?
- Ep 7
7.Can You Judge a Book by Its Cover?
21-11-20186mDespite the adage of not judging a book by its cover, there’s a lot of time, intent, and money spent creating memorable book covers. Get to know the story behind some of literature...
- Ep 8
8.Fear of Ghost...Writing!
07-12-20186mYou might being asking yourself-- Why do ghostwriters even exist? Isn’t that cheating? Isn’t literature supposed to be the result of one person’s agonizing need to create? Aren’t b...
- Ep 9
9.Unreliable Narrators
17-12-20186mWho is the most powerful character in fiction? Villains may doom the world, heroes may save it, but no one has more control over the plot than the narrator - expositing the who, wh...
- Ep 10
10.Food & Fiction: Memorable Meals in Literature
11-01-20196mFood varies wildly from place to place and from culture to culture; since humans are such sensory creatures, using words to evoke the experience of eating is an excellent way to br...
- Ep 11
11.Death, Personified
24-01-20196mDeath as a character reveals how we process one of life’s greatest mysteries, and there’s a lot more breadth to how the grim reaper is depicted than you might think.
- Ep 12
12.How Greek Mythology Inspires Us
07-02-20196mAncient Greek Mythology has worked its way into modern pop culture so deeply that it would be an almost Sisyphean task to compile every way it’s manifested!
- Ep 13
13.The Beauty and Anguish of Les Misérables!
18-04-20196mVictor Hugo’s Les Misérables is one of history’s most famous novels and one of the longest-running musicals in Broadway history. On this special episode of It’s Lit! we explore how...
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