Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation.

Boots!

Where would we be without boos?

Where would we be without good?

No, Timberg.

It's a rhetorical question, sir.

But where would we need without books?

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

Last week, I spoke to George Saunders about his new book.

It's a book about reading and writing, and inevitably being about reading and writing, it's also about life. And it's called a swim in a pond

in the rain, in which four Russians give us masterclass on writing and reading and life.

Now, George, last week you were telling me that your lens had spin on the technical aspects of writing.

And this may well be because you went to engineering school and you like to know how

things work.

But I want to tell you something.

I think, George, the book after book, yes, your lens has been on the technical aspect of writing,

but you have been able to frame your intellect and compassion on the brokenheartedness about which these Russian writers write.

And that this is not a book about the technical aspect of writing.

This is a book about how writing reaches the heart and a report on what writing does to the heart as you read,

and that while you might once, when I first met you, have been a far more technical writer,

and sure, you were inventing all kinds of new stories, shapes,

even new things for the human biology to do. Limbs would fall off. All kinds of extraordinary

...