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The Thread® - Books and Literary 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.

Sign Up for The Thread® Newsletter

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. 

Let's stop requiring advanced math, a new book argues

Let's stop requiring advanced math, a new book argues

Algebra, trigonometry and calculus keep millions of people from graduating. And they're unnecessary, argues author and professor Andrew Hacker.

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Single by choice: Why fewer American women are married than ever before

Single by choice: Why fewer American women are married than ever before

Rebecca Traister, author of "All the Single Ladies," says the declining marriage rates among adult women are less about the institution of marriage and more about the choices available to women today.

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Sentenced to death for murder, a woman tells her story from 'Memory'

Sentenced to death for murder, a woman tells her story from 'Memory'

In Petina Gappah's new novel, an albino Zimbabwean woman named Memory is charged with murdering her adoptive father. She narrates the tale from inside a maximum security prison in Harare.

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A new chapter for Once Upon A Crime bookstore

A new chapter for Once Upon A Crime bookstore

For 14 years Gary Shulze and Pat Frovarp have run Once Upon A Crime, a Minneapolis bookstore that caters to mystery lovers. They're retiring, and the store is changing hands.

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The most frequently assigned women authors for college courses

The most frequently assigned women authors for college courses

TIME magazine pulled data from over one million college syllabi to determine the women authors who are most frequently assigned for courses.
by Tracy Mumford

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Teen girls and social media: A story of 'Secret Lives' and misogyny

Teen girls and social media: A story of 'Secret Lives' and misogyny

Author Nancy Jo Sales says the Internet fosters a kind of sexism that is harmful to teen girls. Her new book is "American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers."

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'Locally Laid': The story of a very plucky chicken farm

'Locally Laid': The story of a very plucky chicken farm

The Amundsens went from keeping five chickens in their backyard in northern Minnesota to opening a 2,000-bird egg farm. Things didn't always go smoothly.
by Tracy Mumford

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The modern science of love

The modern science of love

What do your brainwaves look like when you're in love? What's the science behind hooking up? Anthropologist Helen Fisher discusses love in the modern age.
by MPR News Staff

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How to spice up historical fiction? Just add dragons

How to spice up historical fiction? Just add dragons

Before her first book, Naomi Novik was a programmer who wrote Napoleonic-era fan fiction on the side. Then she had an idea: "What could make the Napoleonic wars more exciting? Dragons!"
by Ravenna Koenig

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Written behind bars, this 1850s memoir links prisons to plantations

Written behind bars, this 1850s memoir links prisons to plantations

"The Life and the Adventures of a Haunted Convict" is the earliest known prison memoir by an African-American writer. Written by Austin Reed in the 1850s, it was discovered at an estate sale in 2009.
by Lynn Neary

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