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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.

Sign Up for The Thread® Newsletter

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.

Playing the Black Piano

The café in town, the disorientation of travel and the power of music are all part of Minnesota poet Bill Holm's newest collected work.

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Reading Lolita in Tehran

Women in a repressive society find connection to each other and the world by reading fiction. Iranian scholar Azar Nafisi recounts the work of an unusual book group.

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Books to accompany any mood

Have you been asked for a book recommendation and struggled to come up with one? Librarian Nancy Pearl is so passionate about recommending non-bestsellers she's collected her picks in a handy guide.

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The Year That Rocked the World

A tumultuous era is crystallized in one terrible year for many who remember the 60s. The author of Salt explores the assassinations, the riots and political turmoil that framed the year 1968.

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Flim-Flam Man

A journalist writes of her father's life in crime, and what that did to her family. In doing so, she explores the roots of her own struggle to find a better life.

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The Epicure's Lament

Evocative writing of food and a main character who's hard to love mix together in a new novel.

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Poets shout out: a look at spoken word

The Twin Cities boasts a vibrant spoken word culture that reaches many cultures and backgrounds. Two practitioners of the cross between hip hop and poetry talk about the art.

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The Snow Fox

Susan Fromberg Schaeffer's latest novel, "The Snow Fox," is an epic love story set a thousand years ago in Japan. It follows the life of a beautiful and inspired poet, with a reputation for a cruel streak. She falls for the samurai assigned as her bodyguard, but they are torn apart in the intrigues and violence of the almost perpetual civil wars of the time.

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Drinking Coffee Elsewhere

Her stories have been called tough and unsentimental. ZZ Packer's characters try to undo trouble of their own making, and in the process they show how racism wends through a supposedly colorblind society.

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Neil Gaiman talks about his haunting book for children

A young girl discovers an eerie parallel world in a novel for young adults, Coraline. Author Neil Gaiman joins Katherine Lanpher for Talking Volumes. The show was recorded at the Fizgerald Theater on Sunday, Feb. 15.

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