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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. 

Investigative journalist aims to expose ills of privately run prisons

Investigative journalist aims to expose ills of privately run prisons

"American Prison" is the remarkable story of a journalist who spent four months working as a corrections officer -- and a horrifying exposé of how prisoners are treated by a profiting corporation.
by Michael Schaub

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This rapper tried to use neuroscience to get over her ex

This rapper tried to use neuroscience to get over her ex

Dessa is a singer and writer from Minneapolis who spent years trying to fall out of love and get over her ex. Nothing seemed to help -- until she visited a research lab for a brain scan.
by Adam Cole and Ryan Kellman

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'These Truths' looks at America through the promises of its beginning

'These Truths' looks at America through the promises of its beginning

By engaging with our country's past -- and present -- in an intellectually honest way, Jill Lepore has created a book that truly does encapsulate the American story in all its pain and triumph.
by Michael Schaub

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'Accessory to War' is an uncomfortable wake-up call for some

'Accessory to War' is an uncomfortable wake-up call for some

An "unspoken alliance" between scientists and the military had been brewing for millennia prior to Hiroshima. Neil deGrasse Tyson and Avis Lang excel at detailing this union and its possible future.
by Marcelo Gleiser

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Activist DeRay McKesson on why he's making 'The Case for Hope'

Activist DeRay McKesson on why he's making 'The Case for Hope'

In his new book,"On the Other Side of Freedom: The Case for Hope," activist and author Deray McKesson tells his personal story and shares his thinking about activism.
by Michel Martin

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'A Room Away from the Wolves' makes the Gothic bitingly modern

'A Room Away from the Wolves' makes the Gothic bitingly modern

Nova Ren Suma takes all the classic Gothic novel tropes -- an old house, a cursed ring, evil stepsisters, a dark family legacy -- and gives them a bracing update.
by Caitlyn Paxson

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Apocalypse? Naw. 'Woman World' is a laid-back utopia

Apocalypse? Naw. 'Woman World' is a laid-back utopia

Aminder Dhaliwal's popular Instagram comic chronicles life in a world where men have gone extinct. It turns out, without men, life is pretty mellow -- making for a sly critique of patriarchy.
by Etelka Lehoczky

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An almost-too-real portrait of modern Russia

An almost-too-real portrait of modern Russia

"It's very harsh and it's full of violence and incongruities, but it's also truly fully of the Russian spirit," says bookseller Kate Jacobs, about the novel "A Terrible Country."
by Tracy Mumford

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Here are the 2018 National Book Award longlists, featuring a fresh category

Here are the 2018 National Book Award longlists, featuring a fresh category

Fifty nominated books now remain in contention for prizes in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, young people's literature -- and, in a fresh twist to the annual slate, translated literature.
by Colin Dwyer

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