Michael Silverblatt, the literary critic who for more than 30 years hosted the popular radio show Bookworm, has died at 73, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Bookworm was a 30-minute program that featured Silverblatt in conversation with some of the world’s most prominent authors, including Toni Morrison, David Foster Wallace, Joan Didion, Salman Rushdie, Zadie Smith, Stephen Sondheim, and Gore Vidal. The show, which was syndicated on NPR, ran until 2022.

Silverblatt, a New York City native, was educated at the State University of New York at Buffalo, and then moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in screenwriting. He met Ruth Seymour, the manager of the public radio station KCRW, at a dinner party; Seymour recruited him to host Bookworm, which first aired in 1989.

Twelve of Silverblatt’s conversations were collected in the 2023 anthology Bookworm: Conversations With Michael Silverblatt, edited by Alan Felsenthal. A critic for Kirkus called the book “a warm celebration of creativity and the writing life.”

Silverblatt’s admirers paid tribute to him on social media. On the platform X, author Will Chancellor wrote, “In my world, Michael Silverblatt’s death should be front page news. Such a beautiful, gentle soul who read in exactly the way that we miss today.”

And writer David Hering posted, “Bookworm was a window on a new world. I used to go through the archives and listen to endless interviews. Michael Silverblatt was the perfect host—erudite but always curious and excited to know more. He awakened countless people to literature. A life well and fully lived. RIP.”

Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.