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.

From private collection to lending library: Quatrefoil grows as resource for LGBT community
A new exhibition opens at the Hennepin History Museum in Minneapolis Thursday night on the Quatrefoil Library, one of just a few LGBT lending libraries in the nation. Over the past 30 years, it's grown into a research center and community space.
'Lab Girl': An illuminating memoir of a woman in science
Hope Jahren was raised in Austin, Minn., where she escaped to the cornfields as a teenager. Her fascination with plants has continued ever since, to her current role as a geobiology professor at the University of Hawaii.
'The Dream Life of Astronauts' is a journey to emotional deep space
Patrick Ryan's book of short stories is set around Cape Canaveral, Fla., during the 1960s and '70s. Critic Maureen Corrigan says it's the best new short story collection she's read in light years.