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The Thread® - Books and Literary News

The Thread® is your source for book recommendations and other literary news.

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Sign up for The Thread newsletter to get reading recommendations from Kerri Miller and other bookworms around the MPR newsroom. Sam Stroozas rounds up local events and Minnesota book news you may have missed.

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.

Big Books and Bold Ideas

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.

The storyteller who lost his voice

A few years back, Joel ben Izzy woke up after throat surgery to some good news, and some bad news. The good news: surgeons had successfully removed a cancerous growth. He was on the road to recovery. The bad news? The nerve controlling his vocal chords was dead. He was told he'd lost his voice. Permanently. The news would be bad enough for most people, but it was especially bad for Joel ben Izzy because he is a professional storyteller.

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The life and death of the prairie

The largest ecosystem in North America also is the most altered. A new book chronicles the changes human beings have brought to the surprisingly fragile prairie.

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What are you reading this winter?

Author Nancy Pearl shares book suggestions for gifts and reading on these long winter nights.

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A conversation with author Russell Banks

Writer Russell Banks explores the clash of ideology and racism in his latest novel The Darling. Banks joins Midmorning host Kerri Miller for Talking Volumes recorded at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul.

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"The Darling" by Russell Banks

"The Darling" by Russell Banks is a featured book for Talking Volumes.

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The man who lit 'Chango's Fire'

Julio Santana is an arsonist. He's the hero of Ernesto Quinonez's new novel "Chango's Fire." Julio burns down buildings in New York's Spanish Harlem neighborhood. He gets his money from the building's owners, who cash in their insurance. His criminal activities aside, Julio is a community-minded kind of guy. He's good to his family and friends, and spends a lot of time fixing up his own place. Quinonez says "Chango's Fire" is a protest novel of a kind, pointing out the downside to gentrification.

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A conversation with writer Susan Orlean

Writer Susan Orlean's new book takes readers everywhere from a Little League field in Cuba to the World Taxidermy Championships in Illinois.

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Author Erin Hart brings us back to the bogs

Minnesota writer Erin Hart's new novel, "Lake of Sorrows," brings fans of her first book back to familiar territory -- the mystical world of Ireland's bogs. In fact, the first scene in the book describes a man being swallowed alive by a bog.

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9/11 report leads finalists for National Book Awards

What could have been a dry, impenetrable government document - the final report of the 9/11 Commission - has been honored as a finalist for a National Book Award.

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Barry Lopez talks "Resistance."

Writer Barry Lopez says he has never thought of himself as political. He won the National Book Award for "Arctic Dreams" and critical acclaim his fable "Crow and Weasel." But now he says he's distressed about the state of American democracy, and how most people seem disengaged. His new book "Resistance" tells 9 fictional stories of people who decide to work for change.

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