Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation.

Boots!

Where would we be without books?

Where would we be without good?

No, Timberd.

It's a rhetorical question, sir, but where would we be without books?

From KCRW and KCRW.com, I'm Michael Silverblatt, and this is Bookworm.

My guest today is Peter Orner, and he's been on before.

He's one of my favorite writers, but also a sublime person.

I think he's just a remarkable character who has been reading and writing with an intensity that's so deep and so beautiful that this new book

Maggie Brown and others, I would say, redefines the very idea of what a collection of short

stories is.

Once again, it's called Maggie Brown and others.

It's by my guest, Peter O'Hourner.

It's published by Little Brown,

and it's a collection of,

I don't know what to call them, 44 short stories, sequences, 43 short stories and a novella,

43 short stories plus a novella that's made up of around 18 short stories.

You know how when I maybe talk about something as being experimental or new,

that these are code words for difficult?

These are not code words for difficult in the case of Maggie Brown and others.

What it is is that Peter seems to be asking, how does life tell us stories,

...