The Thread® - Books and Literary News

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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.

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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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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. 

In the 1920s, a community conspired to kill Native Americans for their oil money
The Osage tribe in Oklahoma became spectacularly wealthy in the early 1900s - and then members started turning up dead. David Grann's "Killers of the Flower Moon" describes the dark plot against them.
'The Book of Joan' recasts a historic heroine--in space
Lidia Yuknavitch's fascination with Joan of Arc informs her new novel, set in a grim future where humanity is sexless and ageless, prisoners in a technological hell ruled by a malevolent billionaire.
Fitzgerald didn't satisfy this author, so she wrote her own 'Gatsby'-inspired novel
Stephanie Powell Watts' 'No One Is Coming to Save Us' isn't quite a retelling of 'The Great Gatsby'; instead, it uses similar themes to tell a story about black characters in a declining furniture town.
File this under nostalgia: New book pays tribute to the library card catalog
Today, people use the antique wooden cabinets to store their knick-knacks. But these card catalogs once held the keys to a world of information. A new Library of Congress book explores their history.
File this under nostalgia: New book pays tribute to the library card catalog
Today, people use the antique wooden cabinets to store their knick-knacks. But these card catalogs once held the keys to a world of information. A new Library of Congress book explores their history.