Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation.

Boots!

Where would we be without boos?

Where would we be without good?

No, Timberg.

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, my guest is Jeff Jackson. His book is Miracopora, and it's published by $2 Radio, a young press.

Every year, the Los Angeles Times Book Festival brings to Los Angeles a number of writers

who have been nominated for book prizes.

Jeff was nominated for one of the first novel prizes, and I read the group, and I liked

his the best.

This is Miracopora, and I think we should begin by asking, what does that mean?

Well, Miracorpora is an idiomatic Latin expression that means strange and unusual bodies.

Strange and unusual bodies. Now, does someone who reads this book have to have a command of idiomatic Latin

expressions? No, no, not at all. In fact, I picked the title mostly for the sound. I was looking

for a title that would have sort of a beautiful poetic sound. I thought Mira sounds a little bit

like mirror. Mirro also to look at in Spanish. And Corpora, I figured people could get their way to

body, but really it was about the sound. The book has so many different sections to it that I wanted

to pick a title that wasn't going to sort of stamp some sort of meaning on the book. And instead,

you'd read the book and the book itself would stamp some meaning on the title.

...