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. 

In 'Thanks for the Money,' comedian Joel McHale lampoons celebrity memoirs
McHale says the problem with the genre is a lot of celebrities don't have enough of a story to fill an entire book. ("My life certainly didn't.") So in "Thanks for the Money," he makes stuff up.
Faith, sex and the South intersect in 'Virgin'
April Ayers Lawson's debut story collection features young, often sheltered characters struggling with intimacy in a world where ordinary uncertainties are amplified by a fundamentalist upbringing.
A harrowing tale of Cold War escape in 'The Tunnels'
A new book explores a time in the early 1960s when two groups of diggers built tunnels under the Berlin Wall that were filmed and financed by U.S. television networks.
Ask a bookseller: Literati Bookstore in Ann Arbor, Mich.
The owner of the Literati Bookstore recommends a book that traces the aftermath of a marketplace bombing in northern India: "It explores the indiscriminate nature of terror, which is extremely timely today."