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The Thread® - Books and Literary News

The Thread® is your source for book recommendations and other literary news.

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Sign up for The Thread newsletter to get reading recommendations from Kerri Miller and other bookworms around the MPR newsroom. Sam Stroozas rounds up local events and Minnesota book news you may have missed.

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.

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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.

'Flights' is a trip, if you like wandering off the edges of the map

'Flights' is a trip, if you like wandering off the edges of the map

Polish author Olga Tokarczuk's new collection is a cabinet of curiosities -- surreal, loosely connected stories about the human body, about movement, about two-headed calves and saints' relics.
by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

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An Iraq veteran, heroin addict, bank robber and debut novelist

An Iraq veteran, heroin addict, bank robber and debut novelist

Nico Walker is currently in federal prison for bank robbery. That's given him plenty of time to write his semi-autobiographical novel "Cherry," which has received glowing advance reviews.
by Quil Lawrence

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A day at the beach won't be the same after 'The World in a Grain'

A day at the beach won't be the same after 'The World in a Grain'

Journalist Vince Beiser's no-nonsense writing makes light reading of a grim subject, the past and future of sand, but it paints a telling picture of how great a problem lies before us.
by Genevieve Valentine

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'Crazy Rich Asians' spurs conversation over representation

'Crazy Rich Asians' spurs conversation over representation

Some are critical of a story centered on a specific subset of the already well-represented Chinese-Singaporeans who make up the majority of Singapore's population.
by The Associated Press

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'Baghdad Noir' presents a city of diverse experiences

'Baghdad Noir' presents a city of diverse experiences

Akashic Books' "Noir" series visits Baghdad for its latest installment, and the talented writers collected here manage to wrest compelling noir from a place that's plenty dark already.
by Bethanne Patrick

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'The Line That Held Us': Noir in Appalachia

'The Line That Held Us': Noir in Appalachia

Novelist David Joy, whose books chronicle the rural, working-class South of his own milieu, has penned a new book where a hunting accident triggers a thriller of violent vengeance.
by Lulu Garcia-Navarro

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Like 'Goosebumps?' Here's another 30 years' worth of horror for kids

Like 'Goosebumps?' Here's another 30 years' worth of horror for kids

From the late '60s to the rise of Harry Potter in the late '90s, horror fiction had a hold on young readers, and there was something to scare everyone, from realistic thrillers to possessed dummies.
by Grady Hendrix

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Nobel Prize-winning author V.S. Naipaul dies at 85

Nobel Prize-winning author V.S. Naipaul dies at 85

V.S. Naipaul, the Trinidad-born Nobel laureate whose celebrated writing and brittle, provocative personality drew admiration and revulsion in equal measures, died Saturday at his London home, his family said.
by Associated Press

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Graceful 'Court Dancer' can't escape her sorrows

Graceful 'Court Dancer' can't escape her sorrows

Kyung-Sook Shin's atmospheric, tragic novel follows a beautiful orphan whose dancing skills secure her a place at the Korean court, and later a life in Belle Epoque France -- but not happiness.
by Jean Zimmerman

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