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Boots!

Where would we be without books?

Where would we be without Gutenberg?

Even the thought of it's so absurd.

Where would we be without boos? Where would we be without books Where would we be without books? Where would we be? 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 excited because my guest is Jeff Dyer.

He's been on the show before, and I've always liked his work.

But recently, I read a piece. It was his very first piece

in The New Yorker, and it was called Paul's A Part, Notes from a Pilgrimage, and he's writing

about the Spiral Jetty, Smithson's Spiral Jetty, and DeMaria's Lightning Field, in other words, about Earthart.

And I thought the writing was so great that I couldn't wait to get to his new book,

otherwise known as the Human Condition.

It selected essays and reviews by Jeff Dyer,

and I just think that he's getting so incredibly good.

Now, writing has always been the essence for you, not the subject, but the ability to explore

a subject with the abilities you have as a writer?

Yeah, I think that's true.

I suppose there's this tendency in Britain,

and then you can tell me if it's true in America as well,

there's this fiction, nonfiction divide.

...