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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. 

The life and times of Alexander Hamilton

A new biography of a key founding father reveals a financial genius who deserves more recognition for steering the fledgling nation toward stability.

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Investigating detective fiction

Two detective fiction writers of different generations talk about the genre that keeps readers coming back for more gore and intrigue.

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Northern Thailand's first black Buddhist nun

Twenty years ago Faith Adiele spent two months studying Buddhism in a forest temple in northern Thailand. She was not just the first black American, but also the first foreigner, to study at the temple.

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Author Jim Bouton sets out to save a ballpark

Baseball iconoclast Jim Bouton looks at the efforts waged by city leaders in a small town to find the money for a new stadium, while some citizens fight to save the old one.

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The journey from concubine to empress

The most hated woman in China was its last empress. Host and Talking Volumes producer Heather McElhatton interviews Anchee Min about her book Empress Orchid. The author talks about re-imagining the Ching Dynasty court and the women who rose to power amid intrigue and murder. The conversation was recorded at the Fitzgerald Theater on April 20.

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The softer side of Genghis Khan

A new book explores Genghis Khan's civic side. A Macalester College professor's best-seller maintains the feared Mongol invader instituted many reforms that were well ahead of the times.

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A conversation wtih author Sandra Benitez

Sandra Benitez writes of bi-culturalism and the search for a long-lost brother in her latest novel. It's the story of a Minneapolis woman exploring lessons of healing embedded in rural Mexican traditions.

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A Talking Volumes interview: "Empress Orchid"

The most hated woman in China was its last empress. The next in the Talking Volumes series is based on a true story of palace intrigue and murder, re-imagined by author Anchee Min.

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