Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation.

Boots!

Where would we be without boos?

Where would we be without good?

No, Tender.

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.

Yon Lee has come from Princeton to Los Angeles just to be on bookworm.

I feel grateful because her new book, where Reasons End, is a very profound and unusual book,

and it tiptoes. You wouldn't know necessarily that it was a profound book,

or even a heartbreaking one, because it proceeds so methodically.

The book's title is where reasons end.

The phrase is derived from an Elizabeth Bishop poem,

which is used as an epigraph.

But where do reasons end?

Where do reasons end?

That's a good question.

I think that's where these conversations began.

And, you know, I think we live our lives, or we strive to live our lives with good judgment, good reasons, and when

something happens, we try to find an explanation and all these things are around reasons.

Yes. Well, the amazing thing about this book is that a son has died.

His name is Nikolai.

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