The Thread® - Books and Literary News

The Thread from MPR 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.

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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.

‘Kite Runner’ author speaks about his book being banned in Minnesota school
Khaled Hosseini, author of the 2003 novel “The Kite Runner” speaks out as the American Civil Liberties Group of Minnesota and Education Minnesota file lawsuits against St. Francis Area Schools over a new book ban policy.
ACLU of Minnesota, Education Minnesota file suits against St. Francis schools book policy
St. Francis Area Schools adopted a policy in the fall requiring all new school library materials purchased by the district be filtered through Book Looks, a website backed by conservative groups. The suit claims the policy has led to at least 46 books to being challenged.
This author witnessed South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation hearings. Years later, she wrote about it
Novelist Lauren Francis-Sharma witnessed South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation hearings as a young law intern. Now she’s written a thriller about what she saw.
‘The Buffalo Hunter Hunter’ is Stephen Graham Jones' horror masterpiece
The prose is gorgeous and the plot is complex. The author of “The Only Good Indians” returns again with a spellbinding yarn about one of the bloodiest, most significant parts of the nation's history.
To be a Palestinian-American writer right now can lead to a lot of expectation to focus on identity and devastation, but in her debut novel, “Too Soon,” Betty Shamieh shares the story of three generations of Palestinian women trying to find love, purpose and liberation.
Author Margie Sarsfield’s ‘got the beet,’ and it’s really creepy
If you were going to write a horror story about something in Minnesota, what would you choose as a focus? The newly released novel “Beta Vulgaris” features potentially malevolent sugar beets. They are far from sweet.
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