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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.

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.

My first existential crisis: The sweet story of an angsty 'Square'

My first existential crisis: The sweet story of an angsty 'Square'

Jon Klassen and Mac Barnett are writing a children's book trilogy about shapes who are just like us. The second installment follows a straight-laced square who wonders if he's really a genius.
by Rachel Martin

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'Undead Girl Gang': Mister, they are the weirdos

'Undead Girl Gang': Mister, they are the weirdos

In Lily Anderson's debut novel, a string of suspicious deaths prompts teen witch Mila to try to solve the mystery by raising the dead girls to ask who killed them -- but of course, it's not that easy.
by Caitlyn Paxson

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'Warlight' illumines family secrets in Ondaatje's latest

'Warlight' illumines family secrets in Ondaatje's latest

Set during and after World War II, 'Warlight' follows a young man trying to find out what really happened when his parents disappeared and left him and a young sister in the care of two mystery men.
by Heller McAlpin

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'Barracoon' brings a lost slave story to light

'Barracoon' brings a lost slave story to light

Both terrifying and wonderful, "Barracoon" is Zora Neale Hurston's long-unpublished account of her conversations with Cudjo Lewis, who was brought to America on the last trans-Atlantic slave ship.
by Jean Zimmerman

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Duplass Brothers on working together and growing apart: 'We are ex-soulmates'

Duplass Brothers on working together and growing apart: 'We are ex-soulmates'

Filmmaker siblings Jay and Mark Duplass have been making movies together since they were kids. More recently, Mark says, "We had to dig out space from that beautiful co-dependence."
by Terry Gross

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In 'That Kind Of Mother,' a white mom, a black son

In 'That Kind Of Mother,' a white mom, a black son

Rumaan Alam's new novel starts out as a tale of female friendship between a woman and her child's nanny. Then it becomes a different sort of story -- one about an unconventional parenthood.
by Lulu Garcia-Navarro

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In Dave Eggers' new book, heroic kids do the heavy lifting

In Dave Eggers' new book, heroic kids do the heavy lifting

"The Lifters" takes some of today's grown-up economic concerns and folds them into a supernatural story for kids. Kids are "heroes in waiting," Eggers says; they just need a chance to prove it.
by Audie Cornish

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