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Boots!

Where would we be without boos?

Where would we be without good?

Go to bird.

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.

Today I have the pleasure of talking to T.C. Boyle, Tom Boyle.

His publisher, Viking, has put out the second volume of his collected stories

under the title Stories 2. And now we see it. After all these many years, there's nearly

2,000 pages of stories, yes. And there are more stories, say, than John Cheever or Yudora Welty,

perhaps more than Chekhov. What is this... Well, Michael, thank you so much. A nice company to be in, I suppose.

Yes, what does this mean to you? What it means is that I'm a hyperactive man whose mind is never at rest, and stories just come erupting out of me.

I don't feel good unless I'm making a story, whether it's a novel or a short piece as these are.

On the cover, there's a picture of T.C. Boyle looking as T.C. Boyle has always looked tall,

skinny, piercing eyes, reddish hair, a very good t-shirt, a magnificent red sports jacket on the spine,

a different t-shirt, and a yellow sports jacket.

And I think in a certain way that perfecting your look

has been as much a project as perfecting a short story.

Oh, shucks, Michael.

You know, some of us writers are also models for GQ.

...