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.

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.

Of microbes, patterns and the urban condition
"The Ghost Map" is a chronicle of the 1854 cholera outbreak that ravaged London's Soho neighborhood, the two men who determined its source, and how it all changed epidemiology, mapping and the way cities work.
Meg Tilly's promise to "Gemma"
Meg Tilly won fans in the 1980s with her acting in "The Big Chill" and an Oscar nomination for the title role in "Agnes of God." Then she turned her back on Hollywood and moved to Canada to write.
Duluth's poet
Duluth's poet laureate, Bart Sutter, begins a year of events to bring poetry to people this weekend. The city is hosting an inaugural reading for Sutter.
Finding literature in lost letters and lists
Davy Rothbart is a writer and storyteller who started Found magazine, a publication made up of notes, photos, grocery lists and other stray pieces of paper found where forgotten things drift.
She's back!
Former "Midmorning" Host Katherine Lanpher, who left Minnesota for New York City, makes her triumphant return to the MPR airwaves, if just for a day. Lanpher is out with a book about her move to the big city.
A tale of two sisters
Pulitzer Prize-winning Newsweek columnist Anna Quindlen has written a new novel. "Rise and Shine" is the story of two sisters in New York City.
Here is the preface Vern Mikkelsen wrote for his book, "The Vern Mikkelsen Story," by John Egan. Nordin Press, 2006.