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.

'Eve' author says medicine often ignores female bodies. 'We've been guinea pigs'
Author Cat Bohannon says there's a "male norm" in science that prioritizes male bodies. Female bodies have been left out of countless clinical studies, and research is only just starting to catch up.
Ask a Bookseller: 'The Blue Bear'
Tori Weaver of Rainy Retreat Books in Juneau, AK, recommends the memoir "The Blue Bear: A True Story of Friendship and Discovery in the Alaskan Wild," by Lynn Schooler.
'Sparks' author Ian Johnson on Chinese 'challenging the party's monopoly on history'
Xi Jinping and China's ruling Communist Party have displayed a dogged obsession with controlling the historical narrative. But there's a group of underground historians fighting back.
A young girl runs from Jamestown in Lauren Groff's new book, 'The Vaster Wilds'
Lauren Groff’s new novel is a survival story, in the vein of “Robinson Crusoe,” that swings from brutality to ecstasy as a young girl runs away from the desolation of Jamestown through the early American wilderness.
Oh Bother! Winnie, poo and deforestation
Now that Winnie-the-Pooh is in the public domain, it's a free-for-all. In “Winnie-the-Pooh: The Deforested Edition,” the trees have are all gone. The book is by toilet paper company Who Gives A Crap.
'People Collide' is a 'Freaky Friday'-type exploration of the self and persona
Isle McElroy's novel covers a deep exploration of marriage, love, and the ways we know one another — while also touching on how so much of how we navigate the world depends on how it sees us.