The Thread® - Books and Literary News

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

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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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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. 

Betsey Johnson talks fashion, love and motherhood in self-titled memoir
The designer who has been pushing fashion boundaries for decades reveals more about the woman behind the brand — the whimsy and fun, but also difficult times, from relationships to health challenges.
'Apsara Engine' doesn't break the graphic novel rules — it ignores them
Bishakh Som's new comics collection is uncanny and hard to categorize — science-fictiony, mythic and humanistic, without making any particular assumptions about where humans as a species are going.
In 'Becoming Wild,' Carl Safina takes us inside the cultures of animals
Combining the knowledge of a seasoned scientist and the skills of a good storyteller, the ecologist-author invites us to leave our cultural worlds and enter some animal ones to see just how they work.
The Thread: ‘The Vanishing Half’ a must-read for summer
How’s your summer reading list shaping up? Kerri Miller shares a must-read for that list about colorism, memory and family life in the 1950s and ’60s.
In 'Notes From An Apocalypse,' the end of the world is a state of mind
In charming, anxious, tender essays, writer Mark O'Connell examines his own apocalyptic frame of mind by taking "a series of perverse pilgrimages" to subcultures preparing for the end of the world.
Indie booksellers turn virtual in response to pandemic
Many small bookstores are being nimble during the pandemic as they try to serve customers, even as they try to keep their heads above water.