This is Michael Silverblatt.

Today's Bookworm show may contain spoilers about Edward St. Aubin's new novel, Double Blind.

Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation.

Boots!

Where would we be without books? Where would we be without books?

Where would we be without good?

No, Tenderberg.

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.

You've just heard a theme song written by The Brothers Mail, who are sparks, who are among my favorite people,

and this is a glorious day because I'm about to talk to one of my other favorite people.

That is Edward St. Aubin.

His newest book, Double Blind, was a source of great fascination to me.

I'm enjoying thinking about it, and we're about to experience a conversation about a

wonderful book that isn't, it seems to me, what anyone thinks it is. I've been reading reviewers.

Some of them love the book. Some of them hate the book.

But to my mind, none of them understand the book. What I mean is there's more there than meets the

eye and it was constructed in that way. Edward St. Aubin, whose nickname is Teddy, may I call you Teddy?

Yes, please, Michael. Of course. How did you conceive this book? What were its origins?

Well, I think that I've had a long fascination with the problem of consciousness.

I went to a conference in 1996 called Towards a Science of Conscious.

And I was very struck by the fact that consciousness, which is the only thing we know we have,

...