The Thread® - Books and Literary News

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

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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.

January 22, 2019 12:31 PM

In 'The Birds, the Bees,' teens take on sex ed

In Olivia Hinebaugh's new novel, a girl gets fed up with her school's abstinence-only classes and sets herself up as a sex ed expert, handing out condoms and advice with help from her mom, a nurse.

by Alethea Kontis

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January 22, 2019 12:00 AM

'Prisoner' is an intimate portrait of one journalist's captivity in Iran

Writer Jason Rezaian is unsparingly personal throughout the telling of his arrest, imprisonment and trial, writing of his childhood, family, visits with his wife -- and fears and insecurities.

by Mark Katkov

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January 20, 2019 12:00 AM

'The Gilded Wolves' is a rich, high-speed heist tale

Roshani Chokshi's new novel -- set in an alternate Belle Epoque Paris -- features an unlikely team of thieves out to steal a magical artifact with connections to their colonized homelands.

by Caitlyn Paxson

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January 20, 2019 12:00 AM

'Unmarriageable' sets 'Pride and Prejudice' in Pakistan

You may not think the world needs another retelling of Jane Austen's classic, but Soniah Kamal's 'Unmarriageable' has an undercurrent of social and political commentary that makes it a worthwhile read.

by Ilana Masad

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January 19, 2019 12:00 AM

There's no rest for anyone in 'The Dreamers'

Karen Thompson Walker's new novel imagines a pandemic that puts victims into a deep sleep, giving them strange dreams from which they may not wake up -- and panicking those still awake.

by Melissa Block

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January 18, 2019 6:45 AM

Stephen King, Amy Tan headed to Minneapolis for new book festival

The Loft Literary Center's inaugural Wordplay Book Festival, slated for May 11-12, will feature more than 100 authors. Ready to book your weekend with the wordsmiths? Registration opens in March.

by Nancy Yang

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January 18, 2019 12:00 AM

The personal, the political, the poetic

Bookseller Danny Caine recommends a new "dazzling" collection of poetry that mixes the personal and political.

by Tracy Mumford

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January 17, 2019 12:00 AM

Youthful angst is fresh and compelling in 'Last Night in Nuuk'

Niviaq Korneliussen's new novel follows five people in Greenland's capital Nuuk; it's a heartbreaking yet hopeful look at young, queer life in one of the most isolated places in the world.

by Michael Schaub

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January 17, 2019 12:00 AM

In 'Why We Fight,' one man searches for self-knowledge through mixed martial arts

Josh Rosenblatt's personal meditation on fighting and selfhood is replete with engaging literary and historical excursions -- giving the idea of fighting a dignity it might be harder to grant without.

by Nicholas Cannariato

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January 16, 2019 12:00 AM

'Help Me!' documents a year of self-help books

Marianne Power decided to read one self-help book a month, for a year -- and follow the advice in each, to the letter. She says it became a much more intense undertaking than she'd anticipated.

by Mary Louise Kelly

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