Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation.

Boots!

Where would we be without boos?

Where would we be without good?

No, Zimberg.

It's a rhetorical question, sir.

But where would we be without books?

From KCRW and KCRW.com, I'm Michael Silverblatt.

Welcome to Bookworm.

This is going to be the most unusual show I've ever done.

I have with me as my guest, Dennis Sheck. He is my, well, double. I feel as if Nabokov, a pale fire, arranged this program, and Tweedledum and Tweedledee have been brought together. He does public television and public radio in Germany.

He has, in addition, been an editor, a translator, a critic, and a publisher.

And he is highly appreciated as a literary critic in Germany

and is similarly polarizing with his eloquence.

And don't forget to mention, Michael, that both of us are extremely good looking.

Yes, yes, we are very good looking.

Well, no one has ever said that before, I must tell you.

But thank you very much.

It takes...

It takes an eye from abroad.

But the first thing I wanted to do was to ask you.

I made a decision years ago when I took on this show that because I'm a host, my guest is a guest, and that the rules of

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