The Thread® - Books and Literary News

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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.

‘The Great Gatsby’ turns 100. What’s it like teaching it today?
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novel has spent years on high school reading lists. How are literature professors teaching it today? And do students still find it relevant?
Who gets to be a critic? And why are some so ‘bad’?
Andrea Long Chu and Britney Luse discuss why art is a “fossil record” of desire, what kind of authority critics have, and why we might need to rethink what criticism should do for us.
Graphic Gatsby: K. Woodman-Maynard on adapting a classic for comics
Minnesota graphic novelist K. Woodman-Maynard discusses her adaptation of “The Great Gatsby” into a graphic novel, reflecting on its visual style, classroom potential and enduring themes as the original novel turns 100.
Ask a Bookseller: ‘Black Liturgies’ by Cole Arthur Riley
China Reevers of Country Bookshelf in Bozeman, Mont., recommends “Black Liturgies: Prayers, Poems, and Meditations for Staying Human” by Cole Arthur Riley.
10 books NPR is looking forward to this spring
A famed graphic novelist returns! A Southern-gothic crime-thriller inspired by “The Godfather!” An extremely in depth biography of Mark Twain! And more!
Parting Thoughts: Educator turned entrepreneur ‘wore his success quietly’
Richard Fontaine went from small-town kid to big-city educator and stocking shelves at a bookstore for extra money before he helped build a large videogame retailer. But one thing never changed: his love of books.
Bemidji novelist Dennis E. Staples aims to make the North Woods scary with new book
Red Lake Band member Dennis E. Staples won national acclaim for his first book “This Town Sleeps.” Now he’s back with a second novel “Passing Through A Prairie Country.” It’s a tale that mixes horror and dark fantasy with Ojibwe culture.