The Thread® - Books and Literary News

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

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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.

May 30, 2019 12:00 AM

These 'Words for Home' are poetic and powerful

Jasmine Warga's middle grade novel in verse follows a Syrian immigrant girl struggling to fit in with her relatives in unfamiliar Cincinnati. It's remarkably sensitive, and deceptively easy to read.

by Jessica P. Wick

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May 30, 2019 12:00 AM

'Good Omens' serves up a cozy, strangely heartwarming apocalypse

Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman's 1990 novel about an angel and demon striving to prevent the end of the world becomes a charming, very British series that turns the apocalypse into a spot of bother.

by Glen Weldon

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May 29, 2019 12:00 AM

Michael Wolff's new Trump tell-all 'Siege,' stars Steve Bannon and a cast of no-names

The "Fire and Fury" author offers surprising stories about the president. But there may never have been a more polarizing president, nor an author less likely to be read as a neutral recorder of facts.

by Ron Elving

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May 28, 2019 2:24 PM

Tony Horwitz, Pulitzer-winning journalist and historian, dies at 60

Horwitz's publisher says he died of apparent cardiac arrest. A Pulitzer Prize winner for covering the hardships of low-wage workers, the peripatetic writer sought truths obscured by history's cliches

by Colin Dwyer

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May 28, 2019 12:00 AM

'Frannie Langton' takes power over her own story

In Sara Collins' new novel, a former slave accused of murder recounts her life -- but, as Frannie Langton herself says, no one expects a woman like her to tell her story, or for it to include joy.

by Annalisa Quinn

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May 28, 2019 12:00 AM

Love, disappointment course through 4 classic Asian American novels

In her new autofictional novel, Spanish writer Gabriela Ybarra turns past tragedy -- the murder of her grandfather by Basque separatists -- into a seamless blend of art, politics and private life.

by Maureen Corrigan

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May 26, 2019 12:00 AM

'Summer of Ellen' builds lyrical, sunny suspense

Agnete Friis' new novel takes place in flashbacks, jumping between the present and a rural Danish farm during the summer of 1978 -- a seemingly idyllic time, until two people go missing.

by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

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May 25, 2019 9:50 AM

This 'Greatest Hits' album is real. Its artist is fiction

Laura Barnett wrote a novel about an aging singer-songwriter sizing up her life in 16 tracks. Then she approached musician Kathryn Williams, who created the book's original soundtrack.

by Scott Simon

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May 25, 2019 12:00 AM

Sharp satire and dark humor in 'Riots I Have Known'

Ryan Chapman's debut novel opens in the middle of a prison riot as the unnamed narrator cowers in fear for his life -- which doesn't seem like a setup for comedy, but it's packed with dark laughs.

by Michael Schaub

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May 24, 2019 12:00 AM

It begins with a letter in a cemetery

Bookseller Rayna Nielsen recommends a young adult novel that follows two teenagers caught up by letters exchanged at a gravestone.

by Tracy Mumford

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