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Boots!

Where would we be without boos?

Where would we be without good?

No, Tenderberg.

It's a rhetorical question, sir.

But where would we mean without books?

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

Penguin of Viking Penguin have a series called the Penguin Classics. They revive,

republish, and keep in print some of the great works of world literature. And brand new to

their series are two books by the Southern writer Harry Cruz. It's amazing because one of the

first books I ever received in the mail from a publisher was the book Car by Harry Cruz.

And my guest today, the marvelous Tobias Wolf, reminds me that the car,

that the hero of Carr decides to eat is a maverick. Well, I didn't remember that. Tobias Wolf

does and would. Toby Wolf is my guest today. He is, of course, the author of

this boy's life and in Pharaoh's army, to name just two of his books. Both of these books

are memoirs, and possibly because he wrote such powerful and long-standing memoirs, Toby was asked to write the forward

to Harry Cruz's A Childhood, the Biography of a Place.

I had not read this book before. I think it's magnificent, and we immediately set to work getting Tobias

Wolf to join us. It's a great honor to have Tobias Wolf here because he was one of the first people on this show, Bookworm, with his memoir,

This Boy's Life. Now, tell me, Tobias, how you encountered a childhood, the biography of a place, by the author we're celebrating Harry Cruz.

My brother, Jeffrey, was a book critic for a while, and he got a galley of this book in the mail

...