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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. 

Kerri Miller offers praise for the work of author Naima Coster
Kerri Miller is preparing for a special all-digital winter season of Talking Volumes, and she’s sharing her excitement about her first interview on The Thread Must-Read.
Amanda Gorman, in a first, brings poetry to Super Bowl
Amanda Gorman, the 22-year-old poet who stirred America at the inauguration of President Joe Biden last month, again commanded the spotlight on one of the country's biggest stages, the Super Bowl.
Powerful 'Removed' walks a path between memory and mourning
Brandon Hobson's new novel crosses back and forth between past and present, mourning and memory to tell the story of a Cherokee family grappling with the death of a son at the hands of the police.
Facing down the monster within in 'What Big Teeth'
Rose Szabo has created a monstrous, dysfunctional family far worse than anything Charles Addams ever dreamed up — and young daughter Eleanor may be the worst of them. She just doesn't know why.
Compelling queer romance eclipses sci-fi stakes in 'Winter's Orbit'
This charming, trope-laden sci-fi romance started life as an original story posted to a fanfiction site, and it wears its fannish influences proudly. Fake-dating? Hurt/comfort? Sunny/grumpy? Yes!
'The Good Girls' aims to uncover the story behind the deaths of two Indian girls
Two young, inseparable teenage girls were found hanging side by side from a mango tree in a small village in India in May 2014. Author Sonia Faleiro investigates their deaths in a new book.
A journalist's eye enlivens 'Land Of Big Numbers'
Journalist Te-Ping Chen's fiction debut puts her reportorial talents to brilliant use, in a collection of short stories about Chinese life that will make readers reconsider their settled notions.
Author interview: ‘Ida B. The Queen’
To kick off Black History Month, we talk to Michelle Duster, the great-granddaughter of journalist and Black activist Ida B. Wells, about her new intimate biography of her great-grandmother’s legacy.
You'll never look at your 'Good Neighbors' the same way again
Sarah Langan's new novel takes the old theme of "something rotten in suburbia" and pushes it into the future, in an intense, uncomfortable story about class resentment and the horrors it can lead to.
While the possible is possible: A 2021 poetry preview, part 3
In the final installment of our 2021 poetry preview, we bring you books that demonstrate the incredible capaciousness of poetry — and that we hope will be sustaining company for the year ahead.