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.

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. 

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. 

Letters serve to bond time-traveling rivals in 'This Is How You Lose the Time War'
Rather than the time travel or war, the thrill of Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone's book becomes the connection between two lonely professional killers with the ability to inscribe letters on lava.
What has the conflict between Israel and Palestine meant to individuals from each country? MPR News host Kerri Miller asks Palestinian author Yousef Bashir and Israeli author Yossi Klein Halevi.
George Takei recalls time in an American internment camp in 'They Called Us Enemy'
Through his graphic memoir, the Star Trek actor-turned-author shows that while it may be too late to undo the WWII incarceration of Japanese Americans, it's not too late to learn from it.
'Late Migrations' essays create a jeweled patchwork of nature and culture
New York Times columnist Margaret Renkl astonishes with her essays, a woven tapestry that makes one of all the world's beings that strive to live — and, in one way or another, face mortality.