The Thread® - Books and Literary 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.

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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 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.

May 28, 2020 2:01 PM

'Hollywood Park' compassionately depicts the suffering and struggles of addiction

Musician Mikel Jollett writes of his young years spent in the Synanon cult and how music helped him overcome these dark days, but misses a chance to discuss music as art and the ideas guiding him now.

by Nicholas Cannariato

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May 27, 2020 3:55 PM

Larry Kramer, pioneering AIDS activist and writer, dies at 84

Kramer was a writer with an Oscar-nominated screenplay when his friends started dying mysteriously — galvanizing him to found the Gay Men's Health Crisis, and later ACT UP, to combat AIDS.

by Neda Ulaby

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May 27, 2020 2:07 PM

How the 'lost art' of breathing can impact sleep and resilience

While researching his book, “Breath,” James Nestor participated in a study in which his nose was completely plugged for 10 days, forcing him to breathe solely through his mouth. "I felt awful," he says.

by Terry Gross

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May 27, 2020 1:57 PM

A memoir reflects on what happens to the 'Fairest' of them all

During a boyhood in the Philippines, Meredith Talusan received positive reactions to the white skin and blonde hair accompanying albinism. She found a different response as a trans woman in the U.S.

by Hope Wabuke

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May 26, 2020 12:55 PM

'St. Christopher On Pluto' follows the adventures of 2 friends in an old Buick

Nancy McKinley mixes screwball humor with social criticism in a collection of interlocking stories about two women who work at a mall in Northeastern Pennsylvania.

by Maureen Corrigan

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May 25, 2020 5:36 PM

The Thread: Works to celebrate our doctors and nurses

In the midst of this pandemic, we’re acknowledging the risks and the sacrifices being made each day by our doctors and nurses. In this week’s Thread, Kerri Miller offers up a poem, a memoir and a romance novel.

by Kerri Miller

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May 23, 2020 4:06 PM

'A Burning' has booksellers talking

“This is a novel of modern India that should be required reading for anyone who reads to seek a greater understanding of the world,” said bookseller Emilie Sommer.

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May 21, 2020 4:27 PM

Pandemic makes evident 'grotesque' gender inequality in household work

With more people staying home due to COVID-19, journalist Brigid Schulte says it's impossible to ignore "the fact that women bear so much more of the burden of child care and housework."

by Terry Gross

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May 21, 2020 6:00 AM

'Brown Album' centers on the erasure of race in American culture

Porochista Khakpour's work is strongest when she turns the lens on herself to examine how she, too, is complicit; many essays here are just too tantalizingly brief to allow space for deep analysis.

by Hope Wabuke

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May 20, 2020 1:38 PM

Author Curtis Sittenfeld explores ‘what-if’ in ‘Rodham’

What if Hillary Clinton hadn’t married Bill Clinton? In her newest novel, “Rodham,” author Curtis Sittenfeld explores an alternate life for the former presidential candidate and secretary of state.

by Breann Schossow and Kerri Miller

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