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. 

Author, philosopher Umberto Eco dead at 84
Eco is perhaps best known for his 1980 mystery novel The Name of the Rose, which is set in a monastery in the 14th century. It was an unexpected international bestseller, launching his career as an author.
Translator behind Elena Ferrante novels says her job is to be an 'enabler'
Ann Goldstein is the translator for the mysterious novelist's popular Neapolitan series. She says her role is to "enable someone to express him or herself as much as he or she possibly can."
More died on this WWII ship than on the Titanic and Lusitania combined
On its final voyage, Germany's Wilhelm Gustloff carried soldiers and thousands of civilians, many of them children. Young adult author Ruta Sepetys revisits the ship's 1945 sinking in "Salt to the Sea."