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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.

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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.

Book briefs: Mark Twain and Helen Keller, fast friends
Letters offer a closer look at a legendary friendship, and a debate rages over just what "young adult literature" really means.
Attention white-collar workers: The robots are coming for your jobs
The machines have long been used in manufacturing, but Martin Ford, author of 'Rise of the Robots,' says they're now poised to replace humans as teachers, lawyers and even journalists.
Astrid Lindgren, famous for creating Pippi Longstocking, filled seventeen notebooks with her observations about everyday life during World War II.
'Nimona' makes a girl in sensible armor the star
Comics artist Noelle Stevenson's webcomic Nimona, about a young shapeshifter with a streak of villainy, has just been released as a book.
Alice Goffman on how U.S. sets up poor, black kids for life in criminal system
The sociologist argues that a constant surveillance of young, black men by police impinges on the men's civil rights and changes the character of entire American neighborhoods.
Inauguration poet mixes grief, love in her new memoir
Elizabeth Alexander, who read at President Obama's 2009 inauguration, mixes soaring language with stunning grief in her new memoir about her husband's unexpected death.
Literary mysteries: Books that have been permanently lost
Manuscripts from Ernest Hemingway, Sylvia Plath, Thomas Hardy and more have all been lost to time -- or to a train station thief.