The Thread® - Books and Literary News

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Ask a Bookseller

Ask a Bookseller is a weekly series where host Emily Bright 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.

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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.

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.

A son's addiction, a father's agony
A child's addiction transforms a family. Two new memoirs with different perspectives show how a child's meth habit nearly destroyed a son and almost devastated his father.
Novel mixes horses, riders, and encroaching wealth
When Aryn Kyle began writing about a girl growing up at a Montana riding school, she meant it to be a short story. Yet, when she came back to it a few years later, it became her best-selling novel "The God of Animals."
What to read
Two book lovers talk about what they're reading now, the books that have been praised and overlooked, and how to keep books relevant in a digital age.
Comic novelist combines design with infamous experiments
Graphic designer Chip Kidd is one of the most sought-after book cover designers in the country. He's also a novelist, and his latest book, "The Learners," deals with the infamous Milgram experiments.
Author Manil Suri uses fiction to explore India
Indian-born author Manil Suri burst onto the literary scene in early 2001 with his novel, "The Death of Vishnu." Now he's completed his second work, "The Age of Shiva."
Celebrating and satirizing Anton Chekhov
Actors and musicians in Minneapolis are using the dark heart of winter as the perfect setting for celebrating and satirizing the great Russian playwright Anton Chekhov.
Lynne Cox: swimming the cold seas
She swam the English Channel as a teenager. In 1987, she crossed the Bering Strait between the Soviet Union and Alaska. Her toughest feat: swimming for 25 minutes near Antarctica in water cold enough to kill in much less time. In the rarified world of distance cold water swimming, Lynne Cox is the best known. She's also the author of two books on her adventures.
Charles Baxter's new novel explores 'soul vampirism'
Minneapolis writer Charles Baxter describes his new novel "The Soul Thief" as being about an extreme kind of identity theft which he calls "soul vampirism."
Geraldine Brooks finds mystery in an ancient text
When Geraldine Brooks covered the Bosnian crisis for the Wall Street Journal, she became fascinated by the disappearance of the Sarajevo Haggadah, a prized medieval text. The story of its recovery launched what was to become Brooks' new novel, "People of the Book."