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 need without books?

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

My guest is the beloved Sandra Cisneros.

Her book is called Martita I Remember You. It's a bilingual

edition, Martita Te Requirdo, and it's a lovely, lovely book published by Vintage. And if you can, as I believe you should, read it in English

and Spanish. Why not? Alternate paragraph by paragraph and teach yourself a little bit more Spanish,

no matter how much you already know, you can

always learn more. And I'm going to ask Sandra Cisneros, who's been a guest since the early

days of the show. We've spoken about many, many things, including her brilliant memory of sitting on the staircase as her mother,

who was a house cleaner, and she remembered the smells of the ammonia and the household solvents

because the subject of the show at that period was memory, and she said that

her strongest memory was smell. Yes, I remember that when my grandma, who lived with us,

would clean, I would remember as a child the smell of the cleansers.

I'm going to ask Sandra to read the first paragraph of Martita.

I remember you in English and then in Spanish.

Well, thank you, Michael.

Thank you for introducing me with the memories of smell

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