Bookworm

“HOLDEN CAULFIELD SAID: “WHAT really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it.”That’s pretty much what Michael does with writers, except he invites them over—to his sound studio the size of your bathroom, where they sit eye-to-eye across from each other at a desk. He doesn’t need notes; he’s read (and probably reread) everything by them and everything about them…

From his book-lined apartment (no kidding, even in the kitchen cupboards—and all alphabetized), Michael tells me: “I believe in the elaborate taking care of others. And we live in a culture where ‘I’m not my brother’s keeper,’ ‘That’s your responsibility,’ ‘Get a life’ have become bywords, code phrases, anthems for elaborate indifference, selfishness, greediness, and the failure of empathetic acceptance. In the same way that we need to repair the economy, we need to repair the effects of an economy of selfishness. And that isn’t just the filling in of the big bucks that have fallen out of the system. The rescue that we need is emotional rescue, communicative, large-hearted. I’ve always dreamed that people listening to the show would hear that readers and writers are expanders of feeling centers, of the global ability to imagine other lives. And I want people listening to the show, yes, of course, to grasp its intelligence, but to also hear that it wants to show the feeling that reading and imagination inspire in writers and readers. We want to share those things with listeners. There are all sorts of other things that you get on radio and television, but I wanted listeners of Bookworm to hear words, ideas, but particularly emotions that don’t get discussed in public if at all elsewhere. That is to say, for one reason or another, the show is a crusade that’s much larger than the subject of books.”

Listen to Bookworm here.