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The Thread® - Books and Literary 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.

Sign Up for The Thread® Newsletter

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. 

The book that just keeps selling

The book that just keeps selling

Bookseller Francine Tanguay recommends a novel about two women separated by a century, but connected by tragedy. It’s been a best-seller in her shop for almost five years.

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Cartoonist Lynda Barry: Drawing 'has to come out of your body'

Cartoonist Lynda Barry: Drawing 'has to come out of your body'

Comic artist Lynda Barry has a new book, Making Comics, and a MacArthur Genius Grant (though she says she hung up on the MacArthur folks repeatedly because she thought it was a robocall).
by Etelka Lehoczky

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Don't like Harry Potter? Come to the 'Dork' side

Don't like Harry Potter? Come to the 'Dork' side

Our kids' books columnist Juanita Giles has a secret: Her kids don't care about Harry Potter. But they do like Mike Johnston's relatably hapless boy wizard Wick, star of Confessions of a Dork Lord.
by Juanita Giles

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Talking Volumes: Lindy West on 'The Witches Are Coming'

Talking Volumes: Lindy West on 'The Witches Are Coming'

If you have only experienced Lindy West’s writing online, you might mistake her sharp cultural commentary for anger. But as Kerri Miller and a Talking Volumes audience found out recently, she displays a surprising sense of optimism.
by Kerri Miller and Marcheta Fornoff

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'Labyrinth' is a leisurely wander through a life no longer remembered

'Labyrinth' is a leisurely wander through a life no longer remembered

Turkish author Burhan Sönmez's quiet, subtle fourth novel, about a man who wakes up in the hospital with complete amnesia, is deeply concerned with the linkages between memory and the body.
by Ilana Masad

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A 'Girl on Film' grows up and finds her artistic path

A 'Girl on Film' grows up and finds her artistic path

Spoiler alert: Cecil Castellucci never became a filmmaker, despite her Hollywood dreams. But her new graphic memoir winningly recounts how she found her way as a novelist and comics writer.
by Etelka Lehoczky

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'A different way of understanding the story'

'A different way of understanding the story'

Bookseller Jhoanna Belfer recommends a graphic memoir by Mira Jacob, about the realities of growing up in the U.S. as a person of color.

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Centuries of debutantes dish about being put on display in 'The Season'

Centuries of debutantes dish about being put on display in 'The Season'

Kristen Richardson traces the history of the practice, with firsthand accounts from diaries and letters, finding political strife, social upheaval and machinations to keep out so-called undesirables.
by Genevieve Valentine

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In 'The Second Sleep,' the world may end, but life goes on

In 'The Second Sleep,' the world may end, but life goes on

Robert Harris' genre-bending new book at first appears to take place in a medieval setting — and then you realize the young priest at its center is holding a cracked, defunct, centuries-old iPhone.
by Ilana Masad

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