You are a human animal.

You are a very special breed, or you are the only animal.

Who can think, who can reason, who can read.

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

I'm here in the studio today with David Levitt,

author most recently of a place I've never been,

a new book of short stories from Viking Press.

He began his publication history with a book of stories called Family Dancing, followed by two novels, one called The Lost Language of Cranes, and the following one called Equal Affections.

He's no stranger to Bookworm.

He's visited the show before.

It's nice to have you back here.

Thank you.

What's it like to go back to short stories after two novels?

Is it like coming home?

Well, I was working on some of these stories while I was writing the novels,

so it didn't really feel so much like coming back as going through a period when I was working on both. But it's nice.

I love writing short stories. I always say that a novel is like a marriage and a short story is like an affair.

You know, a novel you have to live with every day and some days you love it and some days you don't

love it. And a short story is something you live with for about three weeks and it's very intense

and passionate and then it's finished um so it was not it was nice uh i suppose to be having affairs

again after two marriages.

But people often ask me which form I prefer,

...