Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation.

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 need without books?

From KCRW and KCRW.com, I'm Michael Silverblatt.

This is bookworm.

My guest is Howard Rodman, or as it says on the cover of the book, Howard A. Rodman,

and the book is called The Great Eastern.

Now, I have the feeling that I may have, as usual, read a different book than the book the author

wrote, but that's fine.

You know, we all bring our own equipment to the pages we read.

But tell me what drew you to this book, Howard?

What drew me to this book was having spent a childhood where I liked the world I found in books better than the world

I found outside of books.

And a lot of what I read was really pulpy because you can hide in pulp in a kind of delicious

and delirious way.

And there was all of the kind of lurid magazines and paperbacks, but also stuff

like Jules Verne, which was somewhat more elevated pulp. Yes, but I want to say that some of the most aesthetic of esthetes love pulp.

One of the people who loved Jules Verne

...