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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.

This novel about Haiti's 2010 earthquake shows us: People persist

This novel about Haiti's 2010 earthquake shows us: People persist

Myriam J.A. Chancy's new novel “What Storm, What Thunder,” shifting from one character to the next, skipping non-chronologically from 2014 to the day of the earthquake to the days before or the months after, is as far as possible from a maudlin account of a terrible tragedy: It is a precise, albeit fictional, reconstruction of the many kinds of individuals and experiences during and after the tragedy.
by Kamil Ahsan

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Miriam Toews' latest novel offers ardent, funny lessons in staying and fighting

Miriam Toews' latest novel offers ardent, funny lessons in staying and fighting

Miriam Toews based the women of “Fight Night” on the women in her own life — her battles are their battles; against pompous religious leaders, abusive husbands and the lies depression can tell.
by Kristen Martin

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This version of Sleeping Beauty is wide awake, and knows what to do with that spindle

This version of Sleeping Beauty is wide awake, and knows what to do with that spindle

Alix E. Harrow's “A Spindle Splintered” gives us a Sleeping Beauty for today, cursed not by an evil fairy but by an industrial accident, and yanked into another dimension where she must save a princess.
by Jessica P. Wick

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Writer with Bell's palsy ponders how to experience joy when expression is limited

Writer with Bell's palsy ponders how to experience joy when expression is limited

“Smile” records Sarah Ruhl's coming to terms with her new face and the conundrums it presents — after the playwright wondered for 10 years whether the story deserved to live on the page.
by Kristen Martin

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With four kids in an old Studebaker, Amor Towles takes readers on a real joyride

With four kids in an old Studebaker, Amor Towles takes readers on a real joyride

Set in the early summer of 1954, “The Lincoln Highway” follows a crew of kids — some fresh out of reform school — who hit the road in search of a better future, with a few detours along the way.
by Heller McAlpin

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Talking Volumes: Kate DiCamillo on 'The Beatryce Prophecy'

Host Kerri Miller’s second Talking Volumes event of the season took place on Thursday, Sept. 30, with Kate DiCamillo, whose latest book is “The Beatryce Prophecy.”
by Kerri Miller

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'The Rose Code' is a gripping WWII thriller

'The Rose Code' is a gripping WWII thriller

Ask Katy Futrelle — owner of Horton’s Books and Gifts in Carrollton, Ga., — about one of her favorite books to recommend this year and she’ll tell you about Kate Quinn’s novel “The Rose Code.” 
by Emily Bright

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