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.

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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.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti, beat poet and small-press publisher, dies at 101
In 1956, Ferlinghetti published the first edition of Allen Ginsberg's “Howl.” According to one critic, his greatest accomplishments were fighting censorship and starting a small-press revolution.
'Red Line' examines Syria's use of chemical weapons, and the world's discovery of it
Journalist Joby Warrick takes a detailed look at an excruciating moment for the world — the time in 2013 when the U.S. concluded that Syria's government had used chemical weapons in its civil war.
'Popular Longing' digs into everything we'd rather leave unsaid
In her third collection of poems, Natalie Shapero takes a blunt, funny look at the uncomfortable realities of life under capitalism. She says her work engages with the things people don't talk about.
Ep. 11: Books, burgers and croissants. (Like ya do)
The polar vortex a few days back made us want to get extra comfy in The Warming House this week. We got reading suggestions to curl up with from two booksellers. And as is the way in The Warming House, however, we quickly got distracted with food — officially launching The Great Minnesota Burger Bracket.
In 'Nubia: Real One,' trying to be a hero when society thinks you're a threat
Nubia has been many things over decades of comics: Wonder Woman's sister, her rival, a guardian of the underworld. Now, L.L. McKinney and Robyn Smith have re-imagined her as a Black American teenager.
Ask a Bookseller: A northern Minn. author explores the aftermath of a shooting
Sally Wizik Wills of Beagle and Wolf Books and Bindery in Park Rapids, Minn., recommends a new book by a local author this week: Doug Mayfield’s “The Saint Patrick’s Day Hero.” The novel begins after a horrific mass shooting at a fictional college in Minnesota.
You actually will be talking about 'No One is Talking About This'
Patricia Lockwood's first novel follows an extremely online woman whose life changes forever when her niece is born with a serious illness — which sounds Hallmark-ready, but Lockwood pulls it off.