The Thread® - Books and Literary News

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

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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.

For April, 3 romances that provide delicious escapes
Nothing guarantees a happy escape like a romance novel, and escape has never been more necessary — so for April we've got three reads packed with humor and heartache to savor while you stay inside.
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.