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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.

A is for appreciation: How Sue Grafton helped transform the mystery genre

A is for appreciation: How Sue Grafton helped transform the mystery genre

Grafton revolutionized what had become fossilized formula fiction. She tossed out the genre's sexist, racist and nativist cliches and helped make the detective novel matter again.
by Maureen Corrigan

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That time you fell in love with a mutant potato

That time you fell in love with a mutant potato

Rot is a super confident and very friendly mutant potato who is bound and determined to win "The Cutest in the World" contest. Bookseller Moira Koskey said Rot's story is one of her favorite picture books of the year.
by Tracy Mumford

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Sue Grafton, writer of popular 'alphabet' mysteries, dies

Sue Grafton, writer of popular 'alphabet' mysteries, dies

Grafton was the author of the so-called Kinsey Millhone Alphabet Series in which each book title begins with a letter from the alphabet.
by Associated Press

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Definition mission: A rhyming limerick for each English word

Definition mission: A rhyming limerick for each English word

The Omnificent English Dictionary in Limerick Form (or OEDILF for short) has published more than 97,000 rhyming definitions since Chris Strolin started it in 2004.
by The Associated Press

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In 'The Power,' women develop a weapon that changes everything

In 'The Power,' women develop a weapon that changes everything

Naomi Alderman's new novel imagines a world in which women suddenly pose a physical threat to men. Alderman says it was gratifying to imagine how characters might use that power to fight back.
by Lynn Neary

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Just trust me: In praise of strange books

Just trust me: In praise of strange books

Author Victoria Schwab says she loves the books that can't be categorized, that fall between library-shelf categories, and that spark passionate debate among readers who either love them or hate them.
by Victoria Schwab

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For children, a good booger joke helps the medicine go down

For children, a good booger joke helps the medicine go down

Dr. Howard Bennett knows that humor can help his young patients be less worried when they're at the doctor's office. In his latest book, he uses gross-out jokes to explain how kids' bodies work.
by Lauren Kafka

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She's done the sums on Santa, and the math checks out

She's done the sums on Santa, and the math checks out

Hannah Fry is co-author of The Indisputable Existence Of Santa Claus, an application of mathematics to holiday quandaries like wrapping round presents, turkey roasting and one man's annual journey.
by Ray Suarez

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A brutal crime and the beginning of the FBI

A brutal crime and the beginning of the FBI

Bookseller Karen Barros recommends David Grann's book on the murders of the Osage tribe in Oklahoma in the 1920s and 30s: "This book explores those murders, and the birth of the FBI in solving those murders."
by Tracy Mumford

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