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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.

How living in a library gave one man 'the thirst of learning'

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.
by Heidi Glenn and Liyna Anwar

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Electrifying 'Power' flips the gender script to unsettling effect

Electrifying 'Power' flips the gender script to unsettling effect

For most of recorded history, men have held power over women. Naomi Alderman's new novel imagines a world where women suddenly have power -- actual electrical power -- to oppress, hurt and kill men.
by Michael Schaub

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Chris Jackson and the book industry's attempts to diversify

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."
by Lynn Neary

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'The Apparitionists' raises the specters that haunted America

'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.
by Genevieve Valentine

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In 'This Blessed Earth,' the outdated romance of the family farm

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.
by Lulu Garcia-Navarro

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Poet Rupi Kaur: 'Art should be accessible to the masses'

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.
by Rachel Martin and Alyssa Edes

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In 1960s New York, witchy women learn 'The Rules of Magic'

In 1960s New York, witchy women learn 'The Rules of Magic'

In Alice Hoffman's prequel to "Practical Magic," two sisters uncover their family's supernatural gifts and curses while growing up in the city.
by Lulu Garcia-Navarro

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A 'hypnotic,' 'pointillistic' novel

A 'hypnotic,' 'pointillistic' novel

David Enyeart recommends a new novel by British writer Jon McGregor: "He's not very well known in this country yet, but I think he certainly will be."
by Tracy Mumford

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You're going to hate 'TheMystery.doc,' and that's OK

You're going to hate 'TheMystery.doc,' and that's OK

Matthew McIntosh's fractured and fracturing 1,600-page tale of a writer with amnesia and a missing manuscript isn't fun, and it probably isn't supposed to be. But it is magnificently weird.
by Jason Sheehan

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'Unkindness Of Ghosts' transposes the plantation's cruelty to the stars

'Unkindness Of Ghosts' transposes the plantation's cruelty to the stars

Rivers Solomon's novel is set on a giant generation ship, on an interstellar voyage of centuries, divided between the wealthy, light-skinned upper-deckers and the oppressed, laboring lower-deckers.
by Amal El-Mohtar

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