The Thread® - Books and Literary News

The Thread® is your source for book recommendations and other literary news.

Sign Up for The Thread® Newsletter

Sign up for The Thread newsletter to get reading recommendations from Kerri Miller and other bookworms around the MPR newsroom. Sam Stroozas rounds up local events and Minnesota book news you may have missed.

Ask a Bookseller

Ask a Bookseller is a weekly series where host Emily Bright checks in with booksellers around the country about their favorite books of the moment. Listen to Ask a Bookseller to find your next favorite book.

Big Books and Bold Ideas

Big Books and Bold Ideas is a weekly series hosted by Kerri Miller and produced by Kelly Gordon every Friday at 11 a.m., featuring conversations about books and other literary ideas. Listen to Big Books and Bold Ideas here.

Talking Volumes

Talking Volumes is an annual event series featuring notable authors in conversation about their new books. Presented by MPR News and The Minnesota Star Tribune.

'Secret Identity' is a masterful 1970s literary mystery
Alex Segura's mystery-thriller features a queer Cuban American artist fighting against the patriarchy and dodging bullets in the desperate, male-dominated world of comics.
Ask a Bookseller: 'One for the Blackbird and One for the Crow'
We're continuing our Women's History Month theme on "Ask a Bookseller." This week, Jessica Bohnsack of Sheridan Stationery Books and Gallery in Sheridan, Wyo., was happy to recommend a historical fiction novel set in her state: "One for the Blackbird and One for the Crow" by Olivia Hawker.
Former Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch warns Putin will move west if he wins in Ukraine
Yovanovitch served as the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine but was relieved of her post following a smear campaign orchestrated by Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani. Her new memoir is “Lessons From the Edge.”
Three YA fantasies take you on a journey — at home
These three YA fantasies offer up creative magic systems and mythologies, stakes as high as they come, and girls with the grit to get it done.
From the archives: Historian Eric Foner on three constitutional amendments that altered history
In anticipation of Friday’s show about the Civil War, we’re revisiting a conversation Kerri Miller had with Pulitzer-prize winning author Eric Foner back in 2019, about how that era changed what it means to be an American.
A kids' book travels through history to ask: Where does 'Blue' come from?
The color blue is all around us, but where does it come from? In Blue, written by Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond and illustrated by Daniel Minter, the answer is as deep as the sea and wide as the sky.
'In Defense of Witches' is a celebration of women
Mona Chollet's book shows how women are still today expected to act certain ways or be ostracized, as it hails feminist minds — our modern witches — and their work.
Wajahat Ali on being American with an asterisk
Writer and activist Wajahat Ali loves America — but he knows that being a brown, Muslim in this country means America doesn’t always love him back. In his personal and often hilarious memoir, “Go Back To Where You Came From,” Ali shares his own experience of being both "us" and "them."