Welcome bookcase book nerds.

I am Kate Gibson.

And I'm sticking to the book nerds thing.

I'm sticking to it.

And my co-host is.

You're not going to let go of it, are you?

I'm not.

Charlie Gibson here, Kate's father.

And she refers to me now as my employee. But I welcome you? I know it. Charlie Gibson here, Kate's father, and she refers to me now as my

employee. But I welcome you discerning readers. It's good to have you with us in the bookcase. And today

we have a real treat. I think Dave Barry is something of a national treasure. We need humor

more and more these days. And Dave Barry has been, I think, one of the funniest Americans around for years

and years and years. For those who know him, he wrote a column for the Miami Herald for years and

years. He has written a lot of books. The newest one we're going to talk about today is Swamp Story.

And Dave writes what I would consider sort of nonsense novels or silly stories. There is a plot. I don't mean to say

there's not. It's almost like they're intelligent. I think of them as sort of intelligent

Keystone cop movies, like they're slapstick, but they're not sort of three stooges slapstick.

I think one of the things that fascinated me most about this interview is that he talks about the fact

that he's a very careful plotter, that he knows exactly where he's going to go and how he's

going to get there, which is interesting because his plots are crazy outlandish. But he creates

these situations that are outlandish, but he believes he has to try to make them believable

for his reader. And that's really important

...