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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.

From KCRW, Santa Monica, I'm Michael Silverblatt, and this is Bookworm. Today I am honored

to be talking to Doris Lessing, who is at the BBC House in London, the BBC Broadcasting

House in London, England. Shecasting House in London, England.

She is the author most recently of a group of novellas, a quartet of novellas, called The Grandmothers.

It's published here by Harper Collins Publishers.

She is, of course, the author of many books that have really influenced, changed, startled, reported on the culture.

The Grass is Singing, the Golden Notebook, Briefing for a Descent Into Hell,

The Remarkable Children of Violence, Novels Sequence.

Oh my.

The series, Canopus and Argus, which began with Chakasta.

Recently, she has published the first two volumes of an autobiography, as well as Ben in the World,

a continuation of work that began in the fifth child, as well as the novel, The Sweetest Dreams. The grandmother's is, as I've said, a group of four novellas, and it seemed to me, Doris, that there was

the theme of the concern of an older set for the younger ones, whether it be that those younger ones be able to take care of them,

fail to take care of them, but it seemed to be very much a book of one generation's plans for the next.

I wasn't aware of it, you know.

It wasn't how I was thinking.

These stories are true stories, all three of them, the only one, which isn't as a non-realistic one.

...