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Boots!

Where would we be without books?

Where would we be without good?

No to bird.

It's a rhetorical question, sir.

But where would we be without books?

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

Today, I'm very pleased to have us my guest, Douglas Stewart.

He has written a first novel. The amazing thing about this first novel, which is called Shaggy Bain, is that it has been nominated for both

the Booker Prize. It's on the short list of five, and for the American National

Book Award. This is a very rare thing. His publisher, Grove Press, is very proud of him.

And reading the book, I understood that pride. I was lost in admiration for this book.

This book took me deeply into a world that I don't know. It's the story of a young boy,

Shaggy, being raised in Scotland, in Glasgow at the time of an enormous

economic failure.

The mines are closing.

The steel mills are closing.

People are living without money, without food, and Shaggy is living with his mother

and his brother, Leek, short for Alexander. Shuggy is short for Hugh. And I've learned that

Dugi is short for Douglas.

So here we are in Scotland in the midst of poverty.

...