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Boots!

Where would we be without books?

Where would we be without good?

No, Timberd.

It's a rhetorical question, sir.

But where would we need without books?

From KCRW and KCRW.com, I'm Michael Silverblatt, and this is Bookworm.

Today, my guest is Adam Levin.

Now, if you've been looking around bookstores, while you've seen an immense volume called The Instructions.

It's big enough to draw your attention and to say, well, here's something new you've got to look at.

And now he has a new book called Hot Pink.

It's a book of short stories.

He's a writer who's living in Chicago now. Were you born there?

Yes, I was. I was born in the suburbs. And he went and did his work as a student writer with

my friend George Saunders. He's got a lot of modernity on his side. And I wanted to begin by asking, because this is work that's very

definitely by a writer. When did you figure out you were a writer? When did you start to want to be?

What's your progression? I think when I was about, I graduated high school and I went to, you know,

college. I was 17, moved out of my parents' house and I, like, I pretty much only went to college

because I needed time to play music. I was going to be a, but I was a bassist and I was, you know,

you can't really do much as a bassist on your own. And so I was in bands.

And I had, you know, read and written, like, my, you know, my whole life, but just thought of it.

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