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Boots!

Where would we be without boos?

Where would we be without good?

No, Tenderberg.

It's a rhetorical question, sir.

But where would we need without books?

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

My guest today is David Levittan, who has, until now, been writing only YA, young adult novels.

He's also the editorial director of fiction for

scholastic books, who are the publishers of the Harry Potter series. But here he is with his

first adult novel, The Lover's Dictionary, a private diary of a relationship written as a series of

dictionary entries.

David, I thought you might like to begin with the very first one, A for aberrant.

All right.

Aborant, adjective.

I don't normally do this kind of thing, you said.

Neither do I, I assured you. Later it turned out we had both met people online before

and we had both slept with people on first dates before and we had both found ourselves falling

too fast before. But we comforted ourselves with what we really meant to say, which was,

I don't normally feel this good about what I'm doing.

Measure the hope of that moment, that feeling. Everything else will be measured against it.

...