Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation.

Boots!

Where would we be without boos?

Where would we be without good?

No to bird.

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.

Today I have as my guest, long-time reporter and columnist Hector Tobar, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the L.A. riots.

He was on that distinguished team.

He's the author of two novels.

The newest is The Barbarian Nurseries.

It's published by Farris Strauss and Cheru, and it's a book that wants to redefine the way Los Angeles is perceived in fiction.

You know the Los Angeles novel, The Day of the Locust, full of decadence and roundabout, meaningless activity, horses and swimming pools, down to play it as it lays. We're always

seen as a city influenced by the movie industry, by crime. Hector Tobar is that wonderful thing,

a citizen of Los Angeles, and he's written a citizen's book, the impression

of someone who actually lives here and has been covering this beat for years and years.

Oh, well, thank you so much. Thank you for having me, Michael. It was a long project and it was an attempt to encapsulate

what I know and what I feel about my hometown.

Yes. Where exactly were you born?

I was born in East Hollywood.

Where?

...