You are a human animal.

You are a very special breed,

for you are the only animal.

Who can think, who can reason, who can read?

Hi, this is Michael Silverblad, and this is Bookworm.

Today is a special day.

After Alan Gorgainis was here last time, my associate producer, Melinda Siegel,

read his book, Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All.

It was a subject of conversation between us for a long time.

After all, it's a long book.

And I decided that when Alan Gorgainis

came back upon the publication in paperback of Oldest Living Confederate Widow tells

all that Melinda would get the chance to ask him the questions that she was asking me. Welcome,

Alan. Nice to see you again. And Melinda Siegel is going to start.

Well, I want to thank Michael for giving me the opportunity to be the surrogate for all the readers of your book, Alan. And how do you know so much about what women go through? a man and having said I believe that you think

they're another species not only another gender I agree with that but how do you know so much

part of it is from listening part of it is from remembering the kindnesses of women to me from the very beginning. I think my first

memory in the world is of being in the arms of a black woman who was hired to look after me

and my brothers and who was probably paid 50 cents an hour and didn't take that out on us, who taught us all the Laura that we

knew, all the fairy tales, all the English nursery rhymes, and who sang to us and treated

us as if we were her own children. There was a kindness and a familiarity that was very moving to me and was very different from the way I felt toward my father, for example, who was a classic gentleman of the 1950s who felt that his major duty was earning money and staying away from the house as long as possible and supervising the yard work and keeping us quiet at dinner.

So that I've always felt a kind of identification with women and admired their emotional maneuverability.

...