Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation.

You are a human animal.

You are a very special breed.

Or you are the only animal.

Who can think, who can reason, who can read.

From KCRW, Santa Monica,

I'm Michael Silverblatt,

and this is Bookworm.

One of the privileges

of doing a program

like Bookworm for so many years

is that some of the writers

have been my guests

several times.

Some of them I've traveled to see and

have interviewed in other cities. My guest today, Isabel Allende, is one such writer, and

her new memoir, The Sum of Our Days, is a book that allows me to feel that I know her

in ways that are astonishing to me.

And I'm sitting here feeling so much tenderness for you that I wanted you to know what a remarkable achievement it is.

Now, what the book really does do is describe how a woman has managed

to assemble not only her family, but her extended family and her extended families,

and these include several dogs, adopted grandparents, adopted children,

...