Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation.

Boots!

Where would we be without booms?

Where would we be without Gutenberg?

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'm very happy and excited.

I have, as my guest, Jeanette Winterson, an extraordinary event happened in 1985. You know, sometimes a comet

enters from another part of the solar system. The book, oranges are not the only fruit,

was like a comet streaking across the consciousness of readers everywhere. It's a book that

still influences the people who are lucky enough to find it. It's a book that still influences the people who are lucky enough to find it.

It's a book that has been made into an award-winning motion picture, has been adopted into

curriculums all over the world, has been nominated, I think, by Michael Cunningham as one of the

very best gay and lesbian novels ever to be published.

And now, Jeanette Winterson, the author of Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit,

has written a memoir, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

And it returns to the childhood that was covered in oranges.

Now, tell me, what's the difference between the life has lived

and the life when it's transformed into literature?

It reads better.

The pauses are edited out.

...