You are a human animal.

You are a very special breed,

or you are the only animal, who can think, who can reason, who can read.

Hello and welcome to Bookworm.

This is Michael S Michael Silverblatt.

Today my guest is Alain de Botton.

He's the author most recently of How Proust Can Change Your Life,

subtitled Not a Novel, published by Pantheon,

and the author as well of three previous things that are identified, sort of as novels,

on Love, The Romantic Movement, and Kiss and Tell, which were published in paperback by

Piccador. Tell me, the subtitle indicates that there's been some kind of confusion here. Kiss and Tell poses as a biography.

I believe at one point on love is published somewhere as essays on love. And so had you the fear that having been called a novelist before the aspersions would continue?

Actually, the reason why how Proust can change your life is subtitled, not a novel,

is entirely to do with the publisher and not to do with me.

So that's a publisher's choice.

I would have preferred it to be left up to the reader to decide.

It isn't a novel at all.

It is an essay, really.

And I suppose it's the essay that I feel the closest affinity to.

It's rather a sort of neglected genre

because nowadays if one's a writer,

being a writer means being a novelist really,

...