Five great episodes of Michael Silverblatt’s Bookworm, in honor of the late host.

Michael Silverblatt, the dedicated host of KCRW’s Bookworm, died last Friday at 73.

Bookworm ran from 1989-2022, and was nationally syndicated. Over his thirty years on the airwaves, Silverblatt interviewed almost all your favorite authors. Everyone from William Vollmann to Arundhati Roy, Edward Jones to Gore Vidal.

The late host wasn’t an obvious fit for the short wave. Early in his career, he was dinged many times for his distinctly nasal voice. But Silverblatt’s enthusiasm was unparalleled, and singular.

His path to the airwaves was winding. After college, the native New Yorker worked as a mail carrier, and briefly a Hollywood development man. He tried his hand at writing, but found that reading was the truer love.

Called a raconteur, a card, a genius, and—by his own estimation—”as fantastical a creature as anything in Oz,” Silverblatt became a remarkably dedicated fixture in the literary landscape. He was known for his close reading, and ability to inhale the entire oeuvres of his guests. Not just the greatest hits.

Speaking of: it’s impossible to pick out the best of a show that went so long and hard. But here are five great episodes of Bookworm, for the lifelong fan or the newbie. (All free in podcast form!)

John Keene – June, 2016

John Keene appeared on the show in two wonderful episodes, speaking respectively about his book Counternarratives and his poetry collection, Punks. I enjoy the second one for Keene’s readings. His way of framing his own work is thrilling, but the recitations are electric.

It’s also exciting to hear such a rigorous interviewer meet a complex text. As Sean Sullivan, Silverblatt’s consigliere in this conversation says, “I think the expansiveness of the book makes me feel more expansive, it nurtures my sense of being.”

David Foster Wallace – April, 1996

You’ll find Silverblatt’s softer whisper in this 1996 interview. Conducted just as Infinite Jest hit stands, this is a sophisticated conversation. We kick off with fractals, and conclude with double-binds. In a bit of prescience, Wallace explains how consumerist culture can prime a state for fascism.

At risk of belaboring the Wallacaissaince, this is an especially fun conversation for structure nerds and systems heads.

Gary Indiana – November, 2015

This is one or those talks that make you feel bad about the caliber of your average catch-up. Indiana, the late prolific polymath, talks about his 2015 memoir, I Can Give You Anything But Love. Silverblatt gets the great wit riffing on the opening of Cuba, why true stories are harder to hell, and the nuances of traveling for sex.

On all these subjects, the “most outlandish and straightforward intellectual” of Silverblatt’s acquaintance is urbane and thorny as ever.

Toni Morrison – October, 1998

This archived conversation is literary chit-chat at its best. Silverblatt and Morrison get into the questions animating the masterpiece Beloved.

It’s sometimes philosophical, and sometimes poetic. (“The question is: how are we able to love under duress? And when we can, what distorts it?”) Silverblatt draws Morrison to frame the great dilemma of the late-twentieth century: “the problem of trying to love oneself and another human being at the same time.”

This conversation is especially resonant in light of our present season of novels as IP. Discussing Oprah Winfrey’s adaptation of her novel, Morrison explains why some books—or ideas—can never be rendered visually.

Wallace Shawn – November, 2017

Shawn kicks off this  hypnotic conversation with a fresh definition of the writer. “My profession is apologizing,” he tells Silverblatt, before diving into the muck.

This conversation with our favorite class traitor/character actor centers around Night Thoughts, Shawn’s book length tango with the guilty position of the American elite. Perhaps because he’s on the brain lately—New Yorkers will be treated to a Shawn revival this spring, when his play What We Did Before Our Moth Days debuts downtown—I found this talk tonic.

Shawn, famous for his moral compass, diagnoses the world on a lucky/unlucky axis, and imagines the upside of apocalypse. His famous chipper tone belies the intense prophecy. But it all makes for a strangely reassuring listen.

Do yourself a favor and spend some time in the Bookworm archives. And if you can hear us, Mr. Silverblatt—your rigorous reading will be missed.

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