Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation.

Boots!

Where would we be without books?

Where would we be without good?

No to bird.

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.

Today I'm really excited because my guest is one of the wittiest writers in the world.

It's Wayne Kastenbaum.

His most recent book is an essay-length book or a book-length essay called Humiliation.

It's published in paperback by Picador.

It has an ideal cover.

Would you describe it, Wayne?

Thank you for calling it ideal.

It's a diary whose lock is in the process of having been picked so that there are slash marks

on the leatherette surrounding the lock.

So the diary is perhaps it has already been picked, but it's been reclassed, but it looks

like a violated body.

If you knew how many novels in which the revelation is that the diary is not in its right

place, and this means that someone, usually mom or dad, has read it.

But if there's anything worse, it's someone knowing your inner thoughts and you're being humiliated by someone's power over you because now they know your secrets.

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