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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 21, 2023 9:00 AM

Ask a Bookseller: LA crime fiction at its best

Patrick Millikin is a bookseller at The Poisoned Pen Bookstore in Scottsdale, Arizona, which specializes in mysteries, and the crime novel he’s been waiting for finally hit the shelves this month. It’s “Everybody Knows” by Edgar-award winning author Jordan Harper.

by Emily Bright

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January 20, 2023 12:22 PM

Racism tears a Maine fishing community apart in 'This Other Eden'

In 1912, the 47 residents of Malaga Island were forcibly removed from their small, interracial community. Pulitzer Prize winner Paul Harding fictionalizes the story in a stunning new historical novel.

by Maureen Corrigan

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January 20, 2023 12:00 PM

Author Katie Hickman on the women of the American West

Old West mythology is full of dust-covered cowboys, lonesome gun slingers and gold-seeking prospectors. But if you only know the men’s side of the story, you only know part of it.

by Kerri Miller and Kelly Gordon

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January 19, 2023 5:35 AM

Bret Easton Ellis' first novel in more than a decade, 'The Shards,' is worth the wait

Hermetic, paranoid, sleek, dark — and with brief explosions of the sex and violence that have characterized Ellis' oeuvre — The Shards is a stark reminder that the author is a genre unto himself.

by Gabino Iglesias

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January 17, 2023 10:30 AM

From the archives: Mary Doria Russell on what really happened at the O.K. Corral

This week, Big Books and Bold Ideas heads West. Friday, host Kerri Miller talks with Katie Hickman about her new book, which tells the tales of the women of the American West. To get you in the mood, this week’s archive is a conversation between Miller and Mary Doria Russell about her book, “Epitaph,” which investigates what really happened at the O.K. Corral.

by Kerri Miller and Kelly Gordon

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January 14, 2023 6:00 AM

'Inside the Curve' attempts to offer an overview of COVID's full impact everywhere

Visually striking — NatGeo and superb photography have always walked hand-in-hand — and incredibly complete, deep and nuanced, this is a book that comes close to the impossible.

by Gabino Iglesias

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January 13, 2023 12:00 PM

Joanna Quinn on her best-selling novel 'The Whalebone Theatre'

This week on Big Books and Bold Ideas, host Kerri Miller talks with the British author whose debut novel took England by storm. “The Whalebone Theatre” tells the story of three children who grow up on a posh seaside estate in the 1920s, and how their imaginations and familial bonds both anchor and inspire their lives.

by Kerri Miller and Kelly Gordon

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January 12, 2023 2:07 PM

Ask a Bookseller: Laziness does not exist

Bookseller Whit Robinson of Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia recommends one of her top reads: The nonfiction book “Laziness Does Not Exist” by Dr. Devon Price.

by Emily Bright

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January 12, 2023 9:45 AM

Anti-fatness keeps fat people on the margins, says Aubrey Gordon

In her new book “You Just Need To Lose Weight and 19 Other Myths About Fat People,” Aubrey Gordon tackles the biases and myths that she says keep fat people on the margins of society.

by Mallory Yu and Juana Summers

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January 9, 2023 8:27 AM

2022 Books We Love: Realistic Fiction

NPR's Books We Love is full of stories. The feature rounds up fiction and nonfiction of many different kinds, and it gives you lots of ways to find what you might love, too. Today, we're diving into the category of realistic fiction – the stories that may not be literally true, but they feel true to the world that people encounter when they walk out the door.

by Linda Holmes, Neda Ulaby, Chloe Veltman, Hafsa Fathima, Mike Katzif and Jessica Reedy

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