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.

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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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.

September 21, 2004 5:08 PM

Finding life, love and commerce in Guatemala through a 19th century poem

Writer Francisco Goldman's new novel "The Divine Husband" is an epic tale of life, love, and commerce in 19th century Guatemala. It didn't start out to be that. Goldman has worked as a journalist in Central and South America. He's written contemporary novels based in his own Guatemalan heritage, including the critically acclaimed "The Ordinary Seaman." But he told Minnesota Public Radio's Euan Kerr a few years ago he needed a break, or as he puts it a way to soothe his soul. He did it by trying to answer a question.

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September 20, 2004 11:20 AM

Stories of families and distance

Author and Minnesotan Valerie Miner writes of the simple joys of travel and transcendence of relationships in her new collection of short stories.

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September 14, 2004 11:20 AM

A conversation with author Joyce Carol Oates

The opening Talking Volumes interview is with best-selling author Joyce Carol Oates. She talks with host Kerri Miller about her most recent novel, which explores a family tragedy. The story is set near Niagara Falls.

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September 8, 2004 7:18 PM

'The Making and Breaking of a Self-Loathing Jew'

Minneapolis writer Neal Karlen describes himself as a shanda—a scandal. He grew up Jewish, in a devout Twin Cities family, but he eventually turned away from rabbinical study and drifted afield of his heritage. In his new book "Shanda" he explains how he tried to make people like him by telling jokes laden with offensive stereotypes, and how a chance friendship brought him back to a more meaningful existence.

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September 8, 2004 11:20 AM

Prescriptions from a country doctor

For almost four decades, Roger MacDonald was a traveling doctor in one of the most remote regions of northern Minnesota. He made his way from fishing villages to Indian reservations, treating the independent and idiosyncratic individuals who relied on him for medical help.

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September 2, 2004 2:40 PM

New book on Duluth lynching of a Finnish dockworker

It's safe to say that, until a new book was released this week, not many Minnesotans knew of a lynching in Duluth's history. "Suomalaiset: People of the Marsh" looks at the death of a Finnish dockworker, whose body was found swinging from a tree in Duluth's Lester Park. Was the death a suicide or murder? It is a question that author Mark Munger tries to answer.

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August 25, 2004 11:20 AM

As luck would have it

Americans are thought to work hard, but playing games of chance is also a large part of life in the United States. One historian says the two different schools of thought are interdependent.

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August 24, 2004 11:20 AM

A life of travel

It sounds like the ideal job to those of us bound to our desks. Travel editor and writer Catherine Watson looks back on her career in newspaper writing and takes your questions about travel.

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August 11, 2004 3:33 PM

Examining a character through the lens of family history

Bharati Mukherjee's "The Tree Bride" continues the story of Tara Chatterjee—by looking backward at her ancestors' interaction with British colonialists. Mukherjee told Minnesota Public Radio's Euan Kerr she knew she had to write the story when she finished the final scene of her earlier book, "Desireable Daughters."

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August 11, 2004 11:20 AM

Defining the American dream

Much is made in this election year about the American dream, but what has that dream meant to people over the decades?

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