Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation.

Boots!

Where would we be without booms?

Where would we be without good?

No, Timberg.

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'm talking to a writer who I've only recently begun to read.

This will be the first time we're talking.

She's the author of two books. Both of them are now out in paperback from vintage. Both of them have been major bestsellers. The first one one it was called Homegoing.

The second one is called Transcendent Kingdom.

The author's name is Yajasi, and because you'll want to get these books, I want to be sure you know how to spell her name.

It's not the way it sounds. Her last name is spelled G-Y-A-S-I. That's Y-A-S-I. And I'm very excited to be talking to you, Yeah. Do you find that people discuss these books easily,

because I find them very complex to talk about? Yes, well, thank you so much for having me,

first of all. I'm delighted to be on the show.

I do think that the books are quite complex.

In both novels, there's quite a bit going on.

The kind of quick pitch about what they're about is easy enough to give,

but when you pull back the covers, you realize that there's much more to be said about them.

The major figure in Transcendent Kingdom is a woman.

She is studying to be a neuroscientist, and she's studying at Stanford.

She has a laboratory there. She's experimenting with mice, and her experiments are profound to her because both her brother and her mother have suffered from

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