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 Silverblad, and this is Bookworm.

Today I'm very happy and honored to have with me as my guest, Joan Didion,

whose most recent book, Where I Was From, was recently published by Alfred A. Knauth.

She is the author, as most of my listeners

are aware, in order of Run River, slouching toward Bethlehem, play it as it lays, a book

of common prayer, the White Album, Salvador, Democracy, Miami, after Henry, the last thing he wanted, and political fictions.

Now, I haven't heard this said before, but as I was reading this book, I thought that it was

a joining of what I think of as two parts of your career.

The first five books seem to be the books of despair and connectionlessness.

And the next book seemed to be very analytic, almost as if the mind has taken responsibility and control of itself

and wants to go as deeply into a subject.

And that change certainly happened in my life.

There just came a moment when all I wanted to do was analyze,

where before I'd been, I think I was unsure about what I wanted to do.

I wanted to put together sentences.

I wanted to express things, but it was a very

unformed way of thinking. The change

...