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.

From poverty to Stanford, memoir tells a physicist's remarkable tale
“A Quantum Life” is an important book to help understand the institutional hurdles that have kept science mostly white and male — and how the fire of inquiry can take root in a heart and lift it up.
Ibram X. Kendi recommends 6 books to help your kids understand race
Ibram X. Kendi has been reading a lot of books about "the human rainbow" to his daughter — so we asked him to recommend some books kids can read to gain a better understanding of race in America.
Author Michelle Singletary on managing your money during times of crisis
Host Angela Davis talks to Michelle Singletary, award-winning author, Washington Post columnist and frequent commentator on CNN and other national news networks about her latest book, “What to Do With Your Money When Crisis Hits.” 
A fresh look at the intent of the Second Amendment
In her new book, historian Carol Anderson says the Second Amendment is more about keeping guns away from Black people than enshrining a right to bear arms in the U.S. Constitution.
A Father's Day gift from Meghan to Harry is now a kids' book
For Prince Harry's first Father's Day, the Duchess of Sussex, Meghan, got him a bench — and wrote a poem about the moments she hoped her husband and their son would share together there. It’s now the basis for a children's book.
Ask a Bookseller: 'The Netanyahus'
Hal Hlavinka of Community Bookstore in Brooklyn, N.Y., says he's been telling everyone about a new novel by Joshua Cohen, out June 22: "The Netanyahus: An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family."
Author Lionel Shriver on her new book, ‘Should We Stay or Should We Go’
Is it better for life to end before it decays into something unrecognizable? That’s the question at the heart of Lionel Shriver’s new novel, which touches on themes of dementia, aging and how to die with dignity — but in a surprisingly playful way.