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 Silverblatt, and this is Bookworm.

Today I have a very great honor to have with me, Dr. Maya Angelou, and her new book is the

completion of her autobiographical sequence that began, of course,

with I Know Why the Cage Bird Sings and Continued with Gather Together in My Name,

singing and Swinging and Getting Merry like Christmas, the heart of a woman, all God's children need traveling shoes,

and now a song flung up to heaven.

I'm very interested because this is the second conversation

I'll be having with Dr. Angelo. The first was at the Los Angeles Times

book festival. And one of the things that I can't help but notice that's quite extraordinary

and beautiful about your presence is how mannerly it is. And I was very interested in knowing how you developed such a commanding and gracious public presence.

Thank you.

I was raised by grandmother.

Me too.

My goodness, that makes us probably twins separated at birth.

There's so much that one gets from the grandmother and grandfather, if you have that.

I had the grandmother and my uncle, who were her only other sibling than my father,

and her only other child, my father's sibling.

...