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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. 

Secrets kept by the 'Gone Dead' haunt the living

Secrets kept by the 'Gone Dead' haunt the living

Chanelle Benz's debut novel follows a woman digging into the death of her father, a celebrated African American writer who abandoned his family -- and died in a mysterious accident not long after.
by Michael Schaub

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'Ask Again, Yes' is a profound yet unpretentious family drama

'Ask Again, Yes' is a profound yet unpretentious family drama

Mary Beth Keane's novel opens in 1973 New York and follows two rookie cops and their families over four decades. Her closely-observed domestic tale transforms into something deep and universal.
by Maureen Corrigan

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'I Like To Watch' is a passionate, brilliant defense of TV

'I Like To Watch' is a passionate, brilliant defense of TV

The collection of 32 mostly previously published essays by New Yorker TV Critic Emily Nussbaum includes a new consideration of the question: "What should we do with the art of terrible men?"
by Annalisa Quinn

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A former Jehovah's Witness on leaving the faith

A former Jehovah's Witness on leaving the faith

"I felt like everything that had mattered to me was gone," Amber Scorah says of her decision to leave the Jehovah's Witness community she grew up in.
by Terry Gross

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Simple, sassy 'Summer of '69' is the perfect beach read

Simple, sassy 'Summer of '69' is the perfect beach read

Elin Hilderbrand -- known as the "Queen of Summer" -- is back with another beachy tale of family secrets and intrigue (and tasty period details), set on Nantucket during the turbulent summer of 1969.
by Jean Zimmerman

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2 fractured halves make a whole in 'Evvie Drake'

2 fractured halves make a whole in 'Evvie Drake'

The debut novel from NPR's own Linda Holmes follows a suddenly widowed (and not all that grief-stricken) woman and her new lodger -- a former major league ballplayer who's lost his ability to pitch.
by Scott Simon

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'Great writing, great style, a nice long page turner'

'Great writing, great style, a nice long page turner'

"You kind of fall in love with the heroine," said bookseller Darryl Peck. "Which is always a nice way to make it through a summer read."
by Tracy Mumford

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'The Accident of Color' looks at the failure of Reconstruction

'The Accident of Color' looks at the failure of Reconstruction

Daniel Brook has written a book that goes a long way toward injecting thoughtfulness into popular notions of the history of race and racism in America but doesn't delve far enough into class conflict.
by Kamil Ahsan

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A noir stalwart builds a new old world in 'The Grand Dark'

A noir stalwart builds a new old world in 'The Grand Dark'

Richard Kadrey-- known for his Sandman Slim series of supernatural noirs -- reinvents himself in grand fashion with 'The Grand Dark,' a diesel-punk fantasy set in a simulacrum of Weimar Germany.
by Jason Heller

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