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Boots!

Where would we be without books?

Where would we be without good?

No, Tenderberg.

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 happy to have as my guest, the author of three books, the newest of which is called Weather.

This is the author, Jenny Offel.

Now, the book is called Weather, and I remember that one of Donald Barthelmey's rules for his students

was no weather.

Get rid of weather.

Writing about weather the most boring thing in the world.

Now, why have you chosen weather?

I wanted to title it weather because, first of all, I just liked the sound of the word.

And second of all, I liked that it would have a little echo of possibility with whether, whether to do something, whether or not to, and a kind of hesitation that is going on in the book.

But also the sense of in our lives that we have weathered something, that we have come through something,

and that we're a bit worse for wear from it, felt important to me. Also, I think there was a

really interesting moment where talking about the weather went from feeling innocuous to

feeling like there was a lot of subterranean feeling underneath it.

I think you're absolutely right. I think that weather has changed,

...