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Boots!

Where would we be without boos?

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 welcome to Bookworm.

Today, I have the pleasure of having as a guest, Antoine Wilson, whose new book, Mouth to

mouth, follows two books. He was a guest on the show between eight and nine years ago with his

terrific novel, Panorama City.

At that time, I had not yet read his first novel called The Interloper.

Now I've read all three, and I can tell you that if you are looking for a short and thrilling book, mouth to mouth, is the

book for you. It's published by Avid Reader Press. Now, I don't know Avid Reader Press.

Antoine, would you begin by telling me, I love the idea of a press named Avid Reader?

Hi, Michael. It's great to be here. Avid Reader is an imprint of Simon & Schuster. So it is a

fairly small team. I don't remember how many books they put out a year,

but it's an excellent imprint.

And I followed my editor, Lauren Ween, from HMH at the time,

which is where Panorama City was published to Avid Reader.

I'll follow her anywhere.

You took, it would seem, if I'm just using the calendar, a very long time to write this

extremely short novel. How did that happen?

...