Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller

When an aspiring novelist moves into an apartment above a famous author, the younger writer thinks it’s a sign that literary stardom is right around the corner. He’s partly right. But his luck is about to turn in ways he can’t expect. Matthew Pearl, himself an award-winning author, writes what he knows in his new novel, “ The Award ” — which is why the book swerves into some wildly dark places. He...

When MPR News host Kerri Miller travels to small towns around Minnesota for her Rural Voice series, she hears over and over again about the crisis of loneliness and social isolation . People say that even in communities where they know everyone, it’s easy to feel adrift. It’s no surprise to neuroscientist Ben Rein, who studies the inner workings of the human brain. He writes in his new book that o...

Only one day after Jen Hatmaker discovered her husband of 26 years was having an affair, her intuition lead her to dissolution, not restoration. In an early chapter of hew new memoir, Hatmaker writes: “What instinct drove me to an attorney instead of back to a marriage therapist? I was acting purely on intuition — which I only figured out later is the most trustworthy character in the play.” Learn...

Big Books and Bold Ideas host Kerri Miller interviews a lot of authors over the course of a year. But some conversations stand out for being especially fascinating, delightfully fun or unexpectedly candid. Last week, we unveiled three of Miller’s top five favorites from 2025 . This week, the final two — plus one surprise. 2025 Best Book Roundups MPR News staff picks The 43 best books MPR News staf...

Big Books and Bold Ideas host Kerri Miller interviews a lot of authors over the course of a year. But some conversations stand out for being especially fascinating, delightfully fun or unexpectedly candid. So this week and next, Miller and producer Kelly Gordon share their favorite, most surprising shows from the last 12 months. This week’s conversations include authors: Sarah Hoover Charles Bock...

Dictionary.com’s word of the year isn’t really a word — it’s a number that went viral on TikTok. The selection caused a ruckus among lexicographers. But editors argued that social media is a major force in creating new words these days, and the whole point of choosing a word of the year is to “reveal the stories we tell about ourselves and how we've changed.” It’s no surprise to author Stefan Fats...

Bad omens abound. But it’s not enough to dissuade 13 tourists on a luxury cruise to Antarctica — including protagonist Striker, a Black film scout on the ship to search for a location to shoot a movie about Ernest Shackleton — from a kayak excursion on a chilly Christmas Eve. As the group paddles past towering icebergs and desolate landscapes, a sense of unease gives way to full on dread. And then...

In Catherine Newman’s bestselling novel, “ Sandwich ,” main character Rachel (nicknamed Rocky), her unflappable husband and newly adult kids decamp to a ramshackle cottage in Cape Cod for a week of sprawling on the sand, late night swims and lazy mornings. Rocky’s aging parents join them halfway through. It sounds perfect — and in many ways, it is. But as anyone who’s ever take a family vacation k...

For 17 years, Mary Lucia was the voice of The Current, MPR’s music-first radio station. Her afternoon drive shifts were beloved for their rock-and-roll vibes, unpredictable humor and human connection. But then a stalker exploited Lucia’s on-air vulnerability, and everything changed. In her new memoir, “What Doesn’t Kill Me Makes Me Weirder and Harder to Relate To,” Lucia tells the full story of ho...

Kate Baer wore sequins to Talking Volumes. It was a fitting close to the 2025 season — and not-so-subtle reminder that today is all we are promised. Might as well wear the sequins. Talking Volumes: Kate Baer Baer’s latest book of poetry, “ How About Now ,” captures the mundane beauty of what it means to be a modern woman in midlife. She writes of shifting roles and shifting bodies, of the joy she...

Curses have long animated literature. Cassandra labors under a curse in “The Iliad.” Although her prophecies are true, she is never believed. Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” endure the curse of a tragic fate, predetermined, in part, because their families despise each another. In Oyinkan Braithwaite’s long awaited second novel, “ Cursed Daughters ,” generation after generation of women are cursed...

“ Nuremberg ” opens in the spring of 1945. Hitler is dead. Many of his henchmen have died by suicide, have been arrested or have fled. The world is just beginning to grapple with the horrors committed by the Third Reich. Hermann Göring, Hitler’s second in command, is arrested by American troops in Austria, who discover him heading west in a convoy of family and friends. Ostensibly, he intends to s...

The Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul was packed with John Grisham fans on Thursday, Oct. 23, when the prolific author made his debut at Talking Volumes. Host Kerri Miller started the night by asking the audience and then Grisham himself to confirm or deny a series of facts. Does Grisham breed champion sheepdogs at his home in Virginia? Has he been knighted? Does he write a sizzling sex scene for eac...

The two women at the center of Anna North’s new novel, “Bog Queen,” are separated by time but inexorably bound. One is a druid who lived during the Iron Age. The other is the modern forensic scientist who is called upon to investigate the druid’s perfectly preserved body after it is unearthed from a British bog. Agnes is drawn to the mystery and even sacredness of her work. Who was this woman, and...

Even before Misty Copeland became the first Black woman to be named a principal dancer at the illustrious American Ballet Theatre, she electrified the world of ballet. A prodigy who didn’t start dancing until she was 13, she grew up in a transient and often chaotic home. But after she was discovered in a Boys & Girls Club in Los Angeles by a ballet teacher who wanted to expose more kids to the...

Twenty-five years ago this fall, a generation of readers met 10-year-old India Opal Buloni and her loveable, scruffy dog, Winn-Dixie — so named because Opal found the canine while he was causing chaos in the produce aisle of the local grocery store. Winn-Dixie transformed Opal’s life, as only a dog can do. And their story changed those who read it, as only a book can do. “ Because of Winn-Dixie ”...

When Patricia Lockwood contracted COVID-19 in the spring of 2020, she lost touch with reality. For months, she floated through her days, dealing with constant migraines and visions of gorillas lurking in the trees. Ironically, she was mostly aware that she was cut loose from humanity. She kept notebooks filled with her wonderings and ramblings. And when she got better, she gathered her shattered e...

The fictional Bonhomie, Ohio, where Patrick Ryan’s new novel, “ Buckeye ,” is set, will be familiar to anyone who grew up in a small town. Children ride their bikes freely. Mom-and-pop stores thrive. And sooner or later, everyone crosses paths with each other. That sense of closeness is charming — until you have a secret to hide. Such is the case with the two couples at the center of Ryan’s sweepi...

The final ballots were still being counted in the presidential election last fall when David French recorded a podcast with fellow opinion writer Patrick Healy. The theme? “ It’s time to admit America has changed .” Kerri Miller welcomed the chance to ask French to expound on what he meant then and what he’s learned since when he came to Red Wing last Thursday night as part of the Philip S. Duff J...

When the Wilder Foundation set out on a cool night in October of 2023 to count how many people in Minnesota were without shelter, the number came in at more than 10,000 . Even more sobering, if national statistics apply: Many of those unhoused people have jobs. Some even work 40 or more hours a week. But they still can’t afford to rent an apartment, buy a house or even pay the fees for a long-term...

The Fitzgerald Theater was filled to the rafters Wednesday night for the season launch of Talking Volumes. Activist and novelist Stacey Abrams joined Kerri Miller on stage and began the evening with a moment of silence to mark the political assassination of Charlie Kirk, who had been shot and killed only hours earlier. Abrams, herself a national political figure, said dark moments such as these ne...

When the next pandemic hits, will we be ready? That’s the question at the center of University of Minnesota epidemiologist Mike Osterholm’s new book, “ The Big One .” And his answer is sobering. Osterholm joined Kerri Miller on this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas for a blunt and personal assessment of what went right and what went wrong during the COVID-19 pandemic. He’s insistent that if we don’...

Stephen Grant was laid off from his job at a boutique marketing agency in March 2020, right when COVID took the world hostage. Newly diagnosed with cancer, he needed health insurance, fast — plus, he was the primary financial supporter of his wife and daughters. Which is how he found himself becoming a mail carrier, back in his hometown in rural Appalachia. It was a tough transition. Grant was bad...

In the seas off Madagascar, Nova Scotia and even Connecticut, the siren call of buried riches has lured treasure hunters and adventurers over many a century. Many seek the wealth Capt. Kidd accrued during years of pirating and then had to hide when his arrest was imminent. In popular lore, Capt. Kidd’s name is synonymous with the fearsome, ruthless privateers of the pirate age. But the truth about...

Maralyn and Maurice Bailey were always a little unconventional. Maurice was a loner, precise. Maralyn was extroverted and energetic. But when they married in the 1960s, they both felt they had found their person. Together, they dreamed of running away from their ordinary lives — of selling everything and sailing the world. And in 1972, they made it happen. They set course for a fresh start in New...