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.

Today, my guest is someone I've been yearning to meet for some time.

His name is Tom Bissell. I first knew of him

through David Foster Wallace. It was David who told me to read your work. And Tom Bissell is an

amazing writer. Among his many books, he's written nonfiction. One is a book about

computer games called Extra Lives. The book we're going to be talking about is his second

book of short stories, creative types and other stories. It's published by a pantheon,

and he has a previous book of short stories called God Lives in St. Petersburg.

Many of the stories take place in so many places I've never been that I came to the conclusion that you've lived all over the

world and have done many things, including writing the review that became the introduction

to David Foster Wallace's reissue of infinite jest. And it began as a review, if I'm not mistaken,

that appeared on the front page of the New York Times book review. They excerpted it. Little

Brown commissioned me to write it, and then we published it there before the book came out.

David, as you may know, was also a friend of mine.

When my father died, the first person I wanted to talk to when I got back to Los Angeles was David.

I left him a message about what had happened.

...