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.

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. 

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 Lisa See on her Chinese American heritage
Lisa See is the author of "Shanghai Girls" and "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan." Many of her books center on Chinese and Chinese American characters. She discusses her writing and the influence of her Chinese American heritage at the Hennepin Country Central Library in downtown Minneapolis.
Hanukkah Lights 2011
NPR's annual holiday program celebrating the Jewish festival of lights. Hosts Susan Stamberg and Murray Horwitz read from a collection of specially commissioned stories centering on Hanukkah.
When dreams kill
While people of all cultures experience sleep paralysis in similar ways, Dr. Shelley Adler examined the fatal sleep paralysis that caused the death of more than 100 Hmong men in the 1980s. She joins us to discuss her research.
Acclaimed Minnesota poet Robert Bly is helping celebrate the Nobel Prize for Literature claimed recently by his longtime friend, Sweden's Tomas Transtromer.
Michele Bachmann's new book has been slow to move off of store shelves, according to figures from the first two weeks of sales.
Utne Reader, the Minneapolis-based compendium of progressive writing and alternative media, is relocating to Topeka, Kan., the magazine's publisher announced Monday.
Books recently recommended by Midmorning guests and listeners.
Ray Bradbury, science fiction/fantasy author and longtime enemy of the e-book, has finally allowed his dystopian classic "Fahrenheit 451" to be published in digital format.
Talking Volumes: Colson Whitehead
Author Colson Whitehead joined Kerri Miller to discuss zombies, Twitter, his childhood journal and his new book, Zone One. Recorded at the Fitzgerald Theater on November 2nd.
The tragedy of Arthur
In his new novel, Arthur Phillips spins a tale within a tale about a novelist named Arthur Phillips, and his discovery of a long-lost play by Shakespeare. Is Phillips writing about himself, and is the play the real thing? Find out on Midmorning. Originally broadcast April 26, 2011.