The History of Literature podcast is a member of the Podglomerate Network and LitHub Radio.

Hello and welcome to this podcast preview.

This is the History of Literature, and my name is Jack Wilson.

So I started this podcast several years ago with the idea that literature might be dying.

Is that just me getting older or was the world moving beyond literature?

Since then I've been on an exploration doing a lot of reading, a lot of thinking, and

talking to a lot of guests who are a lot smarter than I am.

We don't ask the same damn question every time.

We have a lot of fun talking about our favorite books and authors digging into mysteries, unpacking

what it is that writers and readers have been up to all these centuries.

And underlying these hundreds of conversations I've had, including those that I've had

with myself, is that fundamental question that I began with, why literature?

What makes literature necessary?

What do we gain from it?

We can all list the usual platitudes, it takes us places, we've never been, it entertains

us, it teaches us about ourselves, but doesn't the internet do that too?

In social media, what about poems and novels and plays?

What about literature?

What about that?

Is worth keeping.

I read this stuff all the time and maybe you do too.

Why?

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