YouTube, the Book Lover's Best Friend

Greetings, fellow readers! It's that time of the semester where I am so burned out from reading books for all my classes that I have resorted to watching YouTube videos as a means of simultaneous procrastination and entertainment. Some of you may remember fall of my freshman year when I went a little haywire on Disney movies in foreign languages and Sherlock dubbed over with silly songs. Since this was before I started blogging, let me give you a little sample below:

Yeah, my productivity hit an all-time low that finals week. Since then, I have discovered a more cultured side of YouTube, beginning with the I F***ing Love Science channel (which many of you watch, I know) and also the various vlogs about/adaptations of classic literature.

Let me begin with my new personal hero, Ron Lit. This woman has it all: she's a Canadian graduate student studying English literature, and she does videos about books, feminism, and cats. CATS!! All very good things, to be sure. I first found out about her through a feminist Facebook group I'm a member of, and I quickly watched all of her videos and even read some of the books she talks about. I am seriously in love with Ron Lit--her analysis is so sharp, she's funny and gorgeous, and she doesn't apologize for going on "feminist rants." I cannot wait until she makes more videos. Here's a link to her most recent one, which is an excellent analysis of the role of women in detective fiction:

Once I ran out of Ron Lit videos to watch, I went into a severe YouTube withdrawal and was only able to recover with the help of . . .

The Lizzie Bennett Diaries!

My friend Jordan has been trying to get me to watch these for ages, but it wasn't until Maria, a friend from my computer science class, also recommended them that I began to watch the series. Oh. My. Goodness. First of all, imagine this: Lizzie Bennett of Pride and Prejudice fame as a 21st century grad student with her own video blog. Not only that, but Jane, Lydia, and Charlotte all appear on the vlog, too. This adaptation is hilarious and sticks to the spirit of the original novel. There are a few small changes to update the book when necessary (instead of being a rich landed gentleman, Mr. Bingley is transformed into Bing Lee, a young medical student), but the basic plot is still the same. To whoever came up with this, yours is an ingenious idea. I've also heard there's a series called "Emma Approved," which reimagines Austen's Emma--I'm looking forward to starting it once I finish LBD. Here's a link to the first episode, in case you're interested:

That's all for now; I hope this post leads you to some great new literary YouTube channels of your own!

Until next time,

Anna