In his 2019 Pulitzer-Prize winning novel, “The Overstory,” Richard Powers imagines a world where only a few acres of virgin forest remain on the continent. A group of strangers band together to protect those few remaining trees, and in the process, discover the trees are communicating with each other. Powers’ new novel, “Playground,” turns the same…

Beloved children’s author Kate DiCamillo published three new books this year: “Ferris,” “Orris and Timble: The Beginning,” and “The Hotel Balzaar.” She has two more coming next year — plus 2025 marks the 25th anniversary of the book that started it all, “Because of Winn-Dixie.” She is a prolific writer, a lifelong reader and a delightful human. Whi…

You might know Katharine Lee Bates wrote the poem that eventually became the song, “America the Beautiful,” after she visited the top of Pike’s Peak in Colorado and was overcome by its beauty. But did you know she grew up a precocious youngest child in a family that struggled after the death of her father? And that she was a budding feminist who ch…

As we approach Election Day, Big Books and Bold Ideas returns to our Americans and Democracy series. Here are some of the question we’re confronting. How nimble and flexible and resilient is our democracy? What is required of Americans to build and support a healthy democracy? Do we still want it? Eboo Patel writes in his book, “We Need to Build,” …

It’s a winter night when we first meet Tom Rourke. He’s penning love letters, preening in mirrors, pushing dope, partaking of booze, singing and flirting and fighting. It's just another night in Butte, Montana, for the feckless young Irishman. And no one writes the Irish quite like Kevin Barry. Barry’s new novel, “The Heart in Winter,” is his first…

Louise Erdrich is, without a doubt, a beloved writer. The Minnesota Native American author has won nearly every literary award out there — including a Pulitzer for “The Night Watchman” and a National Book Award for “The Round House” — and her stories captivate, haunt and delight millions of devoted readers. She can accept the praise. But the title …

Novelist Alice Hoffman’s new middle grade book, “When We Flew Away,” imagines Anne Frank’s life before her family was forced into hiding. She joined MPR News host Kerri Miller on stage for Talking Volumes to talk about the emotional arc of re-creating Frank’s too-short life.Von Minnesota Public Radio

Immigration is a hot topic this election year, and many Minnesota communities are asking questions about how to face the challenges and opportunities immigrants bring. That’s why MPR News host Kerri Miller traveled to Worthington for the final Rural Voice town hall of the 2024 season. According to the 2020 U.S. Census, Nobles County, where Worthing…

It was a celebration at St. Paul’s Fitzgerald Theater Tuesday night, as the 25th season of Talking Volumes launched with Haitian-born writer Edwidge Danticat. She joined host Kerri Miller on stage to talk about the vulnerability inherent in her new book of essays, “We’re Alone.” They also talked about the challenges facing the Haitian-American comm…

Farming is a bedrock industry in Minnesota. While the number of farms has been falling for decades, partly due to consolidation and partly due to crop shifts, Minnesota remains sixth in the nation when it comes to agriculture production. Could rural Minnesota communities also lead the way when it comes to conservation farming? MPR News host Kerri M…

William Moyers was one of the lucky ones. Sober for decades after years of addiction to alcohol and crack cocaine, he became a model of success and redemption. He started working at the Hazelden Betty Ford, and in 2006, he published a vulnerable memoir, “Broken,” about his journey out of addiction. But then he was prescribed pain killers after some…

How do we restore trust in civic institutions and nurture a renewed sense of possibility in a shared future? That was the central question animating the Rural Voice community discussion MPR News host Kerri Miller led at the Sheldon Theatre in Red Wing on Thursday. She was joined by political scientist and Minnesota native Brian Klaas, who set the s…

The 25th season of Talking Volumes launches later this month. To celebrate, we thought we’d bring you one of our favorite conversations from last year. The 2023 season finale of Talking Volumes brought author and columnist Margaret Renkl to Minnesota hours after the first snow carpeted our Northern landscape. She declared it “magical” — a theme fam…

The third season of Rural Voice kicked off at the Minnesota State Fair on Monday, Aug. 26. It was a steamy day, but it didn’t discourage rural change makers who gathered at the MPR booth for a lively and hopeful town hall with moderator Kerri Miller. The question before them: How is rural Minnesota changing, and how are rural communities thriving i…

Jo Hamya’s new novel, “The Hypocrite,” opens as the trap is being laid. Sophia, a 20-something playwright, has invited her father, a famous and provocative British novelist, to come see her new work. As the play begins, he is shocked to realize he recognizes the set. It’s a replica of the kitchen in his vacation home near Sicily. Then the lead acto…

The first sentence of Frank Bruni’s new book says it all. It reads, “Let me tell you how I’ve been wronged.” More and more Americans are living mired in resentment, says Bruni, convinced that they are losing because someone else is winning. And it’s poison to our collective culture. In his new book, “The Age of Grievance,” he writes: “[Grievance] t…

When A.J. Jacobs decided to immerse himself in early Americana, he didn’t think about the fact that the required wool stockings wouldn’t have elastic. “They would fall down to my ankles,” he laughs. “I had to put on little sock belts every morning. I’ll never get back that time.” But no matter. He was committed to getting into the headspace of the …

Debut novelist Sarai Johnson created four generations of Black mothers and daughters to tackle the questions that came up in her own life: What does forgiveness look like? Can cycles of trauma be broken? Can a daughter truly leave her mother’s mistakes in the past? “Grown Women” expertly probes for answers via the lives of Evelyn, Charlotte, Corinn…

Claire Messud has long wanted to write a novel inspired by her family’s history in Algeria, thanks to a handwritten memoir, more than 1,500 pages long, penned by her paternal grandfather. It was rich with stories and history and photos about her ancestors, who were born in French Algeria but then expelled from their homes in 1962 when Algeria won i…

New York Times bestselling author Nicola Yoon’s new novel, “One of our Kind,” is one of the most talked about books of the summer. On this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas, Yoon joins MPR News host Kerri Miller to talk about what led her to write a book about finding the sinister in a Shangri-La. When does our natural bent to protect and enjoy becom…

Lily Chen is not endowed with good fortune — despite the fact that her scientist mother managed to grow a backyard of four-leaf clovers. She doesn’t win raffles or lotteries. She scrapes out a meager living as an unpaid intern with the hopes that it might give her a shot at an entry-level gig. In short: Not lucky. But then a chance encounter upends…

The Civil War is remembered for its sweeping battles: Gettysburg, Atlanta, Antietam. Less known are the small troops of men, enlisted by both sides, to fight far from the battlefields. These ruthless soldiers relied on stealth to sneak behind enemy lines — often wearing their opponent’s uniform — and destroyed supply lines, assassinated military of…

Taiyon Coleman has been writing since she was a child. At age 8, she announced to her family that a novel was in the works. Today, she’s a published author and a professor of literature at St. Catherine University. But the road from there to here wasn’t as straight-forward as you might think. Coleman joins host Kerri Miller on Big Books and Bold Id…

America is steeped in the notion of rugged individualism. It’s comforting to think success is based on our own hard work and self determination. But social scientist Robert Mark Rank says random chance governs far more of our lives that most of us want to admit. This week on Big Books and Bold Ideas, Rank joins MPR News host Kerri Miller to talk ab…

Noor Khan is still reeling from the disintegration of her family when she stumbles across a library cart stacked with books in her new small-town high school. In her heart, she just wants to finish her senior year and get back to Chicago as quickly as possible. But when she learns the books are being removed by a group of parents trying to ban lite…

Dystopian novels aren’t known for being hopeful. But that’s exactly what Leif Enger brings to the genre with his new book, “I Cheerfully Refuse.” The beloved Minnesota author joined MPR News host Kerri Miller at the Sheldon Theatre in Red Wing on June 4 for a special “on the road” version of Talking Volumes. Their conversation revolved around books…

What do you imagine your death will look like? It’s not a morbid or depressing question to Alua Arthur. She’s a death doula, and she firmly believes that giving thought to that question is the key to living a meaningful life. Arthur herself thinks about dying a lot. As she tells Kerri Miller on this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas, she has detailed…

Who knew boring could be an asset? In Lea Carpenter’s new spy novel, “Ilium,” we meet our young and restless unnamed narrator on a day when she’s urging herself to be less mundane, to take more risks. She has no idea that the spies she’ll soon be working for want her precisely because she’s inexperienced, untested and ordinary. She quickly gets pul…

Birds, bats, freshwater mussels and a small catfish. They all slipped away in 2023, among the 21 species declared extinct by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Grief is a rational response. So are the questions novelist and conservationist Lydia Millet articulates in her new book, “We Loved It All.” A blend of memoir and ecological truth-telling, …

Big Book and Bold Ideas talks with authors from around the globe. But our favorite moments come when host Kerri Miller sits down with Minnesota writers to talk about story, craft and how calling this state home influences both. This week, we took a look back at some conversations with notable Minnesota authors, including Shannon Gibney, who just wo…

Jamie Figueroa’s new memoir, “Mother Island” is stylistically unique. She combines prose and creative nonfiction, myth and short stories to explore her memories. But the heart of the book — her push-pull relationship with her mother and her process of uncovering a true self — is as old as time. Figueroa’s mother was taken from Puerto Rico as a youn…

Alexandra Fuller’s new memoir begins with the death of her 21-year-old son, Fi, and chronicles her attempts to grieve well in the searing aftermath of his loss. Among other things, that meant acknowledging her kinship with others who had gone before her. In her gorgeous new book, “Fi: A Memoir of My Son,” she writes: “The way a pilot sees wind and …

Danny Ryan doesn’t see himself as ambitious — which is surprising, seeing as he’s both stolen and made millions. But in his mind, he’s just an average guy trying to survive in a world that would rather he not. Ryan is the central character of Don Winslow’s sweeping crime trilogy that draws parallels to movies like “The Godfather” and “Goodfellas.” …

Americans overwhelmingly support gender equality. But not as many see themselves as feminists. Elizabeth Cobbs says that’s because we don’t know our history. Her latest book, “Fearless Women,” chronicles how the fight for women’s rights began at the founding of our country, when Abigail Adams urged her husband to “remember the ladies” (and her plea…

Myriam J. A. Chancy spent her childhood in Haiti and then moved with her family to Winnipeg. But those island roots shaped who she became and inspired her latest novel, “Village Weavers.” It follows a complicated female friendship that spans decades and countries. Growing up in 1940s Port-au-Prince, Gertie and Sisi are enthralled with each other — …

When Kao Kalia Yang’s mother was a child growing up in Laos, she lived a comfortable life. Her father was a prosperous merchant. She was the only Hmong girl in the village to go to school. She felt valued. The war changed all that. Hunted by North Vietnamese soldiers, Yang’s maternal family had to flee into the jungle and live a desperate existence…

What do you see, hear and experience when you drop miles into the deepest parts of the ocean? For journalist Susan Casey, it was transformative — even emotional. Her latest book, “The Underworld,” is a homage to the abyss and the scientists who explore it. She also describes her own dives in deep-sea submersibles, through the oceanic “twilight zone…

If you’ve ever struggled to remember where you set down your phone, or how you know the person you just ran into at the grocery store, you’re not alone. Everyday forgetfulness is a part of living — and of aging. But for neuroscientist Charan Ranganath, more compelling than what we remember is why we remember. “The human brain is not a memorization …

At the center of Tommy Orange’s new novel sits a family nearly destroyed. It’s suffering the long-term effects of government-ordered separation, from decades of displacement and neglect, and from the white American philosophy best summed up by the phrase: Kill the Indian, save the man. It’s a theme familiar to readers who loved Orange’s first novel…

In many ways, the COVID-19 pandemic was public health’s finest hour. Millions of lives were saved, thanks to isolation measures. Vaccines were developed in record time. Systems were developed for contract tracing and testing. But it was also an apocalyptic moment for a system under strain. As a result, trust in doctors and scientists has plummeted.…

This week, Big Books and Bold Ideas is launching an election year series that asks: What is American democracy in 2024? Americans come to that question with significantly different views. And what American democracy was when this country was founded isn’t necessarily what it is today or what it will be in the future. Democracy is dynamic. Heather C…

MPR News host Kerri Miller has never skirted the topic of faith. On her former weekday show, she regularly dialoged with leaders like Jenan Mohajir from Interfaith America, activist and author Anne Lamott, theologian Jemar Tisby, Sister Joan Chittister, and evangelical disrupter Rachel Held Evans. She even did a year-long series with women from a v…

Choices made in a moment reverberate for generations, despite best intentions. Vanessa Chan adeptly explores this concept in her debut novel, “The Storm We Made” — a work of historical fiction set in her home country of Malaysia, which was inspired by stories her grandmother would tell. The main character is Cecily, a discontented housewife in 1930…

Women spies pop up in Hollywood movies all the time. But as Liza Mundy’s new book reveals, it took determined persistence, personal risk and a lot of sacrifice for women to be welcomed as CIA operatives. “The Sisterhood” is a meticulously researched, seven-decade history of women who worked behind the scenes at America’s premier foreign intelligenc…

Tracy K. Smith is known for her powerful poetry. She's a Pulitzer Prize winner and former U. S. Poet Laureate. Yet her newest book, “To Free the Captives: A Plea for the American Soul,” is memoir — a classification she initially resisted. But as she tells MPR News host Kerri Miller, she eventually saw that her own story is a kind of microcosm of Am…

Americans’ faith in the value of higher education is faltering. Unlike our global peers, the U.S. is seeing a steady decline in college enrollment and graduation rates, especially among young men. Since 1992, the sticker price for four-year private colleges has almost doubled and more than doubled for four-year public colleges, even after adjusting…

Are you convinced the U.S. government knows more than it will reveal about UFOs? After doing a deep dive into the history, journalist Garrett Graff is too. But he doesn’t think the cover-up is a necessarily hiding alien life. “There are two obvious cloaks of secrecy that surrounds the government cover-up of its understanding of what UFOs and UAPs (…

This year, Big Books and Bold Ideas is introducing an occasional series that will feature books on democracy. That series begins as we mark the third anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection. To gain context, we invited three historians and authors from different regions of the country to reflect on this American moment. Can history be a guide to whe…

“Here is the world,” writes theologian Frederick Buechner. “Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid.” Those words rooted Amy Butler through some of the darkest moments of her life. As Butler slowly embraced her call to be a pastor, she was rejected by her conservative evangelical family, who doesn’t believe women should be in pas…

For years, author Jedidiah Jenkins and his mother, Barbara, have flirted with the idea of a cross-country road trip together. The goal: to retrace Barbara’s route across America which she walked with her husband, travel writer Peter Jenkins, in the 1970s. But there is one problem: they have wildly disparate world views. Barbara is a baby boomer who…