

Bookworm
KCRW
Intellectual, accessible, and provocative literary conversations.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Aug 1, 2019 • 30min
Howard Rodman: The Great Eastern
Literary legends Captain Ahab and Captain Nemo are pitted against each other by real life engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel in Howard Rodman’s The Great Eastern.

Jul 19, 2019 • 30min
Ariana Reines: A Sand Book
The poetry in Ariana Reines's A Sand Book is centered around the theme of hiding: running away and trying to escape.

Jul 18, 2019 • 30min
Ocean Vuong: On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous
Ocean Vuong speaks of leaving his thumbprint within his new novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous.

Jul 11, 2019 • 30min
David Trinidad, Amy Gerstler, Ruth Greenstein: Punk Rock is Cool for the End of the World: Poems and Notebooks of Ed Smith
Editor/poet David Trinidad, poet Amy Gerstler, and publisher Ruth Greenstein reflect on the dynamic mind behind Punk Rock is Cool for the End of the World: Poems and Notebooks of Ed Smith.

Jun 27, 2019 • 30min
David Trinidad: Swinging on a Star
David Trinidad’s Swinging on a Star is a two-part collection of poems that put the human in pop culture.

Jun 20, 2019 • 30min
Laila Lalami: The Other Americans
Laila Lalami’s The Other Americans is a polyphonic novel about social class and identity, with a revelation in every chapter.

Jun 13, 2019 • 30min
Seth: Clyde Fans
A stunning graphic novel by one of the medium’s greatest creators, Seth’s Clyde Fans is about people living in a memory fog, and the strange reverie that life takes on when one grows older.

Jun 6, 2019 • 30min
Ann Beattie: A Wonderful Stroke of Luck
Ben’s life falls down around him, and he’s the protagonist, in A Wonderful Stroke of Luck, by master writer Ann Beattie.

May 30, 2019 • 30min
Dave Eggers: The Parade
The Parade, by Dave Eggers, is a book of creeping dread, where every worst thing is possible, and rational reason leads one to expect that the worst is not over.

May 23, 2019 • 30min
Richard Powers: The Overstory
About the interdependence between humans and trees, Richard Powers found a place for the non-human in literary fiction with his new book, The Overstory.