The Thread® - Books and Literary News

The Thread from MPR 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.

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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. 

Tickets are now available for our 26th season. Join award-winning journalist and MPR News host Kerri Miller (and special guest host Catharine Richart) as they talk with authors including Stacey Abrams, Patricia Lockwood, Misty Copeland, John Grisham, and Kate Baer. 

'Lady Killers:' Cherchez la femme fatale
An FBI investigator once famously said "There are no female serial killers," but Tori Telfer sets out to prove him wrong with this gruesome new account of multiply-murderous women throughout history.
How living in a library gave one man 'the thirst of learning'
Ronald Clark's father was a live-in custodian at a New York City library. Clark tells his daughter about growing up surrounded by stacks of books -- and how that shaped the man he would become.
Chris Jackson and the book industry's attempts to diversify
Chris Jackson is revitalizing One World, a division of Random House known for publishing black authors. To celebrate, it's releasing Ta-Nehisi Coates' new book, "We Were Eight Years in Power."
'The Apparitionists' raises the specters that haunted America
Peter Manseau skillfully weaves together spirituality, technology and the legacy of the Civil War to tell the story of a "spirit photographer" on trial for claiming he could take pictures of ghosts.
In 'This Blessed Earth,' the outdated romance of the family farm
Journalist Ted Genoways spent a year on a small farm in rural Nebraska, and he says American nostalgia for the family farm overlooks the pressures farmers face and the realities of food production.
Poet Rupi Kaur: 'Art should be accessible to the masses'
Rupi Kaur came to Canada from India when she was four years old and didn't learn English well for years; she says her raw, minimalist poems are tailored for readers like her, with limited English.