Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation.

Boots!

Where would we be without boos?

Where would we be without good?

No, Timberd.

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.

When James Franco, my guest, was about to shoot milk, I met him, and we got together and we talked about books.

As I remember, he was taking a class in Proust at UCLA, studying fiction writing with Mona Simpson, and there was also a class in Faulkner, and he had written a brief, a short, adapted from one of Faulkner's short stories.

Oh, right. Wow.

Good memory.

And...

Red leaves was the story at that time yet, right.

We're talking years ago, though.

Yes, we're talking years ago.

Since that time, I, you know, I thought, why is this actor calling me up to talk to me about writing?

But he obviously loved it.

Faulkner and Joyce, and is this one good, and is that one good?

We went to experimental films that were put on by the seniorimea text people by Hedie L. Colty

at the Mandrake Bar.

And he astounded me by coming back the next week on his own and the week after.

So now he's written a book of short stories, a book of poems, and most recently a novel called Actors Anonymous.

...