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.

'Aftershocks' is a powerful memoir of a life upended — then pieced back together
When Nadia Owusu was 4 years old, her Armenian American mother disappeared from her life. When she was 13, her Ghanaian father died. Owusu reflects the losses and her biracial identity in her memoir.
Ask a bookseller: 'The Magical Language of Others' gives a compassionate look at mother-daughter relationships
Amanda Toronto of Word Bookstore in Brooklyn, N.Y., says she can’t stop thinking about a memoir she read recently: “The Magical Language of Others” by poet and translator E.J. Koh. 
Trying to survive on the margins in 'At the Edge of the Haight'
Katherine Seligman's new novel makes alive and visible the lives of people we often walk past. It's the story of a young woman surviving on the streets of San Francisco with a few friends and her dog.
From denial to obstruction: New book charts changing tactics of the fossil fuel lobby
Renowned climate scientist Michael Mann looks at the tactics fossil fuel interests are using to obstruct broad policy shifts that are our surest bet to “take back our planet.”
'Ambitious Girl' reminds kids: Your dreams are not a drawback
Activist and author Meena Harris, the niece of Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, has written a children's book called “Ambitious Girl” in the hope that no young woman in the next generation will have her dreams characterized as a liability.