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'm privileged to have in the studio, Michelle Welbeck.

He is the author most famously of the elementary particles, which is published by Vintage, Platform as well, and an earlier novel called Whatever.

The Believer books have brought out an early work of his. It was published originally in 1988. It's a book on the American

horror writer, H.P. Lovecraft called Against the World Against Life. With us also is Dornah

Kassini. She is the translator of the book, and she has been working with the people at Believer Books.

And I thought I'd begin by talking a little bit about those books because they are very

important.

On the model of McSweeney's, and it is an aligned press, Believer Books has begun to publish books, I would

say, that would not be being published or not being published well by publishers in New York.

Fourthcoming are Heroes in Disguise by Jim Shepard.

The Believer Book of Writers interviewing writers.

Those are drawn from the pages of the magazine, The Believer, and include interviews, say,

between Zadie Smith and Ian McEwen, Jonathan Leatham, and Paul Oster, Zizi Packer, and Edward P. Jones.

And now they have published H.P. Lovecraft Against the World Against Life by my guest, Michelle

Wellbeck. Now tell me, how did you discover Lovecraft?

Well, as most of his readers, very young at 15, and a friend, I was told by a friend.

...