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The Thread® - Books and Literary News

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

Ask a Bookseller

Ask a Bookseller is a weekly series where The Thread 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 every Friday at 11 a.m., featuring conversations about books and other literary ideas. Listen to Big Books and Bold Ideas here.

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. Find reviews for new releases, as well as hidden gems you may have missed.

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. 

Dr. Leana Wen reflects on her memoir and the importance of public health

Dr. Leana Wen reflects on her memoir and the importance of public health

Dr. Leana Wen’s memoir is called “Lifelines: A Doctor's Journey in the Fight for Public Health.” She joined host Kerri Miller for a conversation about her memoir and how her personal story has shaped the public health leader she has become.
by Kerri Miller and Kelly Gordon

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3 sobering lessons learned since 9/11

3 sobering lessons learned since 9/11

These books provide a detailed accounting of events that have defined the U.S. role in the world in the first part of the 21st century. None makes for cheery reading, but all offer sobering lessons.
by Greg Myre

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In 'Civilizations,' Inca emperor Atahualpa conquers 16th-century Spain

In 'Civilizations,' Inca emperor Atahualpa conquers 16th-century Spain

Laurent Binet seems to genuinely want to know to what extent conquest and the cruelty it inevitably produces are reducible, redeemable, or escapable. He also plainly wants to play around.
by Lily Meyer

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Writer Maggie Nelson asks what it means to feel free

Writer Maggie Nelson asks what it means to feel free

In “On Freedom's” allusive, blunt, funny essays, the author of “The Argonauts” and “The Art of Cruelty” tries to imagine freedom as it exists in the contemporary contexts of art, sex, drugs, and climate.
by Annalisa Quinn

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Alabama's first Black poet laureate takes a personal approach to 'Reparations'

Alabama's first Black poet laureate takes a personal approach to 'Reparations'

Ashley M. Jones is Alabama's youngest and first Black poet laureate. Her new book “Reparations Now!” discusses America's history of Black oppression, and asks for more than monetary repairs.
by Jeevika Verma

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'Poet Warrior' Joy Harjo wants Native peoples to be seen as human

'Poet Warrior' Joy Harjo wants Native peoples to be seen as human

The nation's first Native American poet laureate has a new memoir in which she tells her own story — as well as the story of her sixth-generation grandfather, who was forced from his ancestral land.
by Terry Gross

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If monsters were real, this book knows what you'd really do — nothing

If monsters were real, this book knows what you'd really do — nothing

What appears to be a simple, awful police killing turns out to be much worse in Cadwell Turnbull's new “No Gods, No Monsters,” set in a world where monsters and magic are real, and none of it is pretty.
by Jason Sheehan

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