LA has the largest jail system in the country.

You got people that've been in jail just like one time and their life can't get nothing

because of whatever mistake they made.

I stole some ground turkey because I wanted to feed my family.

We was hungry. Off the Block.

Stories tracing the path from city block to cell block and back.

Find it now at kCRW.com or subscribe on iTunes. Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation.

Boots!

Where would we be without boos?

Where would we be without good?

No to bird.

It's a rhetorical question, sir, but where would we be without books?

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

And today I'm very excited to have as my guest, Colson Whitehead, whose new book, The Underground

Railroad, really is the talk of literary America.

I'm going to read a quote from the Boston Globe Review, which says, the first thing to

say about Colson Whitehead's new novel,

the Underground Railroad, is that it's really good. Good, in fact, in just about every way

a novel can be good. A fully realized masterpiece, a weird blend of history and fantasy

that will have critics rightfully making comparisons

to Tony Morrison and Gabriel Garcia Marcus.

Well, you know, you've got chosen by the Oprah Winfrey Book Club.

...