Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation.

Boots!

Where would we be without boos?

Where would we be without good?

No, Zintuberg.

It's a rhetorical question, sir.

But where would we need without books?

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

Today I'm very pleased to have as my guest, Charmaine Craig.

She is the author of Miss Burma.

While she grew up in Santa Monica, her parents and grandparents were born in Burma. In fact, her mother was the first Miss Burma. Am I right? Actually,

there was some confusion about that. I had thought she might be the first Miss Burma

because apparently a few people had told me she was.

And then out of the word work,

I got an email from somebody who said, in fact,

his mother was Miss Burma before my mother was Miss Burma.

So she was one of the first, among the first, but not the first Miss Burma.

Fascinating.

Because, you see, it brings up an immediate question.

Is a historical novel, and this is a historical novel, a factual novel, a factual novel,

I would say that this historical novel is a novel of moods and an attempt to understand

what can't really be understood, which is the moods and the whims of another time.

...