The Thread® - Books and Literary News

The Thread from MPR 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.

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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. 

Tickets are now available for our 26th season. Join award-winning journalist and MPR News host Kerri Miller (and special guest host Catharine Richart) as they talk with authors including Stacey Abrams, Patricia Lockwood, Misty Copeland, John Grisham, and Kate Baer. 

'Luster' shines with sharp wit and dark humor
Raven Leilani's new novel will make you cringe for all the right reasons. It's an intergenerational, interracial love story with a heart of noir and gallows humor, so honest it will make you squirm.
'Empire of Wild' interweaves mystery and love
Bookseller Nadine Teisberg of Birchbark Books in Minneapolis is recommending the novel “Empire of Wild” by Cherie Dimaline. Teisberg calls the novel an intriguing mystery and a powerful love story, interwoven with Dimaline’s own Georgian Bay Métis culture and traditions. 
'Break It Up' examines the history of secession movements in the U.S.
Author Richard Kreitner tells NPR he didn't write his book as a prescription, but that "if we are talking about the end of democracy in America ... I think we need to have all options on the table."
Lesley M.M. Blume's new book tells the story of John Hersey, the young journalist whose on-the-ground reporting in Hiroshima, Japan, exposed the world to the devastation of nuclear weapons.
'Veritas' asks how a respected scholar could be duped by a bumbling fraudster
Author Ariel Sabar explores the lives of Harvard's Karen King and of Walter Fritz, the porn producer who convinced her the papyrus fragment he gave her — "The Gospel of Jesus's Wife" — was genuine.
'Black Bottom Saints' is a gorgeous swirl of fiction, history and Detroit motor oil
Alice Randall's innovative new novel chronicles the history of Black Detroit beyond Motown, and features a cast of real life artists, doctors, sports figures, activists and movers and shakers.
The Thread: Three books to read during the Democratic National Convention
For the next two weeks, political junkies will be consumed with the pandemic-adjusted happenings of Democrats and Republicans at their respective conventions. Kerri Miller brings us must-read fiction and nonfiction for the political junkie in all of us.
Can women break the ‘glass ceiling’ in a ‘man’s world’? Or is that the wrong question?
During the month of August, MPR News host Kerri Miller is exploring what it means to be a woman in America. This week, we turn to Democratic political advisor and author Jennifer Palmieri about feminism and her new book, “She Proclaims: Our Declaration of Independence from a Man's World.”
'It's not religion': In 'The Runaways,' Bhutto examines the lure of extremism
"I was really trying to look at why a 19-year-old boy would give up everything ... in order, quite literally, to take up arms against the world," says novelist Fatima Bhutto.