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. 

Karen Russell’s ‘The Antidote’ is an American epic — and well worth the wait
Russell has published excellent short story collections since her 2011 debut novel “Swamplandia!,” but this is her first novel in nearly 15 years. It follows a “Prairie Witch” in Dust Bowl-era Nebraska.
Why Amanda Knox returns to Italy — and how she talks with her daughter about injustice
Amanda Knox spent nearly four years in an Italian prison for a murder she didn’t commit. After her exoneration, she reached out to the man who prosecuted her case. Knox’s new memoir is “Free.”
New book traces 75-year history of U.S. military climate research
The U.S. military unearthed data about rising sea levels in the early 1950s — and has been closely watching this threat to national security ever since. MPR News chief meteorologist Paul Huttner and geoscientist Paul Bierman talk about climate research by the U.S. Military Forces.
‘Kite Runner’ author speaks about his book being banned in Minnesota school
Khaled Hosseini, author of the 2003 novel “The Kite Runner” speaks out as the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota and Education Minnesota file lawsuits against St. Francis Area Schools over a new book ban policy.
ACLU of Minnesota, Education Minnesota file suits against St. Francis schools book policy
St. Francis Area Schools adopted a policy in the fall requiring all new school library materials purchased by the district be filtered through Book Looks, a website backed by conservative groups. The suit claims the policy has led to at least 46 books to being challenged.
This author witnessed South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation hearings. Years later, she wrote about it
Novelist Lauren Francis-Sharma witnessed South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation hearings as a young law intern. Now she’s written a thriller about what she saw.
‘The Buffalo Hunter Hunter’ is Stephen Graham Jones' horror masterpiece
The prose is gorgeous and the plot is complex. The author of “The Only Good Indians” returns again with a spellbinding yarn about one of the bloodiest, most significant parts of the nation's history.