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.

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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.

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Talking Volumes

Talking Volumes is back for its 25th season. Join us at the Fitzgerald Theater for four special events with renowned authors, celebrating our anniversary with a special $25 ticket price for MPR members and Star Tribune subscribers. Buy tickets here.

Inspired by 'The Decameron,' these poems are a modern pandemic time capsule
If you, like many people, are getting through the dragging months of the pandemic by being Very Online, you'll find poet Leigh Stein's new book is a perfect encapsulation of that experience.
The nuns in 'Agatha of Little Neon' don't fly or sing, but they will stay with you
You don't have to be Catholic to connect with Claire Luchette's vivid story of a lonely young woman yearning for community — and also for everything she gave up to be part of that community.
Ask a Bookseller: 'Hola Papi' offers comical memoir in essays
Katharine Otis of House of Books in Kent, Conn., recommends the comical memoir-in-essays “Hola Papi: How to Come Out in a Walmart Parking Lot and Other Life Lessons” by John Paul Brammer.
All the moving parts fit together in this smart, emotional debut novel
YZ Chin's “Edge Case” follows a Malaysian immigrant working at a lousy, sexist startup, worried about her marriage and the thought of having to move back home — all topics it handles beautifully.
In 'Like Other Girls,' you can be — and play — whatever you want. Even football.
Britta Lundin's “Like Other Girls” follows Mara, a hot-tempered 6'2" high school sports star who's booted from basketball for brawling, but finds a new life and a new way of being on the football field.
Having a conversation with loss and grief in 'Waiting for the Waters to Rise'
Maryse Condé's new novel follws a lonely man, an obstetrician who adopts an orphaned baby girl and tries to find her family — it's an examination of loss and grief on a personal and national level.