Author Diana Abu-Jaber returns to MPR News this week. Friday’s Big Books and Bold Ideas will feature a conversation between host Kerri Miller and Abu-Jaber about her latest novel, “Fencing with the King,” a book set in Jordan that explores family dynamics and inheritance. It’s not the first time Abu-Jaber and Miller have talked. For this week’s blast from the past, enjoy their 2011 discussion about “ Birds of Paradise ,” which NPR named one of the top books of that year and won a 2012 Arab-Ameri...
Mar 28, 2023•34 min
Paul Harding says it’s no accident that the residents of the small interracial community he imagined for his new book are uprooted from their island home at the same time as the first International Eugenics Congress was being held in London. In fact, learning about the conference inspired him to write his book. The seeds of “ This Other Eden ” are planted in the true story of Malaga Island , an isolated island off the coast of Maine that was one of the first racially integrated towns in the nort...
Mar 24, 2023•58 min
When was the last time you felt awe? For many of us, awe is the result of an experience in nature. Or maybe it’s due to a sudden chill up the spine as you listen to music or read a poem. It might be what happens when you witness selflessness or uncommon kindness in another human being, or something as simple as listening to a child laugh as they lose themselves in play. Whatever the source, and no matter the culture, Dacher Keltner says the feeling is the same across humankind. Awe produces a hu...
Mar 17, 2023•58 min
Poet Ross Gay believes in joy. But he pays careful attention to how one defines that word. It is not simply happiness or delight, he says in his new book “ Inciting Joy .” Rather, it is what grows from the fertile soil of breaking and belonging. It is the light that emanates from us when we help each other carry our sorrows. Gay was in St. Paul in November of 2022 to talk with MPR News host Kerri Miller for the finale of the 2022 Talking Volumes season . The evening also featured music from Minn...
Mar 14, 2023•1 hr 10 min
Many Americans are unaware that all-Black enclaves popped up and even flourished during the early 20th century. They did so by following the conviction that “separate but equal” was the only way for Black Americans to stay safe and thrive. But as Jamila Minnicks points out in her gorgeous debut novel, “ Moonrise Over New Jessup ,” that belief was challenged by the Civil Rights movement, which championed equality more than separation. It’s a fictionalized account of one such town, set in Minnicks...
Mar 10, 2023•54 min
Historian Natalia Mehlman Petrzela was a self-proclaimed bookish kid growing up in the 1990s. She didn’t exercise, she didn’t play sports and she loathed physical education at school. But that changed when she first stepped into a group exercise class. “When I walked in there, I discovered there was something called fitness ,” she tells host Kerri Miller on this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas. “Pretty quickly I realized this is not only better than PE, I love this. I don’t just tolerate it.” So...
Mar 03, 2023•57 min
It’s being compared to “The Godfather” and “Gatsby” — high praise for a young writer. But MPR News host Kerri Miller says Deepti Kapoor’s new novel is worth the accolades. “ Age of Vice ” is set in modern day India, a country changing so quickly, few can stay balanced. It follows a young man who grew up destitute, sold into a life of servitude to pay family debts. His life changes forever when he meets Sunny Wadia, the conflicted, playboy heir of a well-known crime family. The story swerves from...
Feb 24, 2023•52 min
Each year, there are a few new books that reduce readers to a frenzy before the words even arrive at the printing press. Such is the case for the “ Age of Vice ” by author Deepti Kapoor, one of the most anticipated books of 2023. This Friday, on Big Books and Bold Ideas, MPR News host Kerri Miller will talk with Kapoor about her crime novel that has been described as “ dazzling ,” with “ echoes of ‘The Godfather’ .” In the meantime, enjoy this conversation between Miller and an author who wrote ...
Feb 22, 2023•46 min
Minneapolis author Shannon Gibney made waves in 2015 when she published her novel, “ See No Color. ” The experiences of main character Alex Kirtridge — a Black girl adopted by a white family — were partially informed by Gibney’s own life as a transracial adoptee. From the archives: Shannon Gibney on 'Dream Country' Gibney returns to her own story with her new memoir, “ The Girl I Am, Was and Never Will Be .” But this time, she mines different timelines — that of her own life, growing up as a mix...
Feb 17, 2023•51 min
Minneapolis author Shannon Gibney made a splash with her first novel, " See No Color ," drawn from her life as a transracial adoptee. It won the 2016 Minnesota Book Award for Young People's Literature. She returns to writing about her own life in her just released memoir, “ The Girl I Am, Was and Never Will Be .” But this a memoir unlike most. Gibney calls it speculative fiction. It explores both her life as it was — and as it might have been, had she not been adopted by a white family. It’s a u...
Feb 14, 2023•35 min
Modern English loves an idiom. We use them all the time. “Take the cake.” “Eat crow.” “Deader than a doornail.” “By hook or by crook.” “Cut the mustard.” “Left in the lurch.” But do we really know what they mean? That was University of Minnesota linguistics professor Anatoly Liberman’s question when he set out to write a dictionary of common English language idioms. His new book, “Take My Word For It,” is the first truly all-encompassing etymological guide to both meanings and origins of idioms ...
Feb 03, 2023•53 min
Is there a word or phrase that you grew up with, something you felt was unique to your family? Maybe it was an expression your parents or grandparents used to show affection or describe frustration, only to eventually discover it had foreign origins? Or perhaps you still wonder where it came from? Borrowed words have flooded most languages, including English. In August 2021 , Anatoly Liberman, beloved etymologist and professor of languages at the University of Minnesota, joined MPR News host Ker...
Jan 31, 2023•50 min
What does it mean to stand on the soil where enslaved people lived, worked and died — and to see, surrounding it, monuments to the people who did the enslaving? That’s the question at the heart of Clint Smith’s book, “ How the Word Is Passed .” After a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee came down in his hometown of New Orleans, Smith began a quest to understand America’s historic and contemporary relationship to slavery. He did that by visiting sites like Monticello Plantation, where Th...
Jan 27, 2023•56 min
When a racially segregated community is suddenly forced to integrate high schools, it inextricably intertwines families on opposite sides of the divide. How two of those families navigate the chaos — and its ripple effects for years to come — is at the heart of Naima Coster's novel, “ What's Mine and Yours .” Coster joined MPR News host Kerri Miller for the season finale of the 2021 Talking Volumes series, Talking Race . We hope it will whet your appetite for Miller’s conversation with Clint Smi...
Jan 24, 2023•49 min
The American West wouldn’t have been settled without the women who braved the frontier. Katie Hickman’s new history, “ Brave Hearted: The Women of the American West ” uncovers their stories. But she doesn’t stop at the white women settlers who traveled by wagon or on foot. Drawing on diaries, letters and memoirs, she also brings to life Black enslaved women who went west with their master’s families, Chinese women who were brought by sex traffickers to the West Coast, and the Native American wom...
Jan 20, 2023•1 hr
Everyone's heard the story of the shootout at the O.K. Corral. It's been immortalized in over 40 feature films and written about in 1,000 books. But Mary Doria Russell refused to accept the story as we know it. Her 2015 novel novel digs for truth in the conflict that made Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday household names. While researching “Epitaph,” Russell tracked down diaries, census records and first-hand accounts of the O.K. Corral shootout. “It has been simplified and scrubbed up and changed and...
Jan 17, 2023•35 min
When we first meet Cristabel, the heroine of Joanna Quinn’s debut novel, “ The Whalebone Theatre ,” she is only three. But she is already sure of herself, in the pure and defiant way that young children often are. She knows she was born to be a leader. But how does she get there? That’s the story at the heart of Quinn’s delightful book, which follows Cristabel and her half-siblings as they grow up on the family’s lush estate in 1920s England. The grownups are dizzy with relief that World War I h...
Jan 13, 2023•55 min
Do you recognize a meme when you see one? Online disinformation expert Joan Donovan defines memes as pithy words or images — like “Black Lives Matter” or “Build That Wall” — that contain a coded meaning. They often work as badges of identity, and they can be powerful shortcuts to provoking an emotional response in the viewer. And thanks to the internet, they’re more influential than ever. Her new book, “Meme Wars,” details how memes and the online communities that produce them intensify the cult...
Jan 06, 2023•55 min
Big Books and Bold Ideas is usually the show where readers meet writers. But for this final show of 2022, we decided to do something unexpected. Instead of talking to writers about books they wrote, we asked them about their favorite literary characters someone else wrote. It’s an assignment these Minnesota authors took seriously, and their selections both surprised and delighted host Kerri Miller. She also asked each author to recommend their favorite book of 2022, so get your “need to read” li...
Dec 30, 2022•1 hr 3 min
“Between you and me, being a woman is a dangerous business.” So says Madam Parks to young Eliza Ripple, who is now working as a prostitute in Gold Rush-era California after her brutish husband was killed in a bar fight. Eliza knows this truth all too well. But instead of letting that truth paralyze her, she leans into the danger that freedom brings. When some of her fellow working girls go missing, Eliza and friend Jean take it upon themselves to investigate the murders — a mystery the male auth...
Dec 23, 2022•51 min
If you want to know canine psychologist Alexandra Horowitz’ best advice for training a puppy, it can be summed up in one sentence: “Expect that your puppy will not be who you think, nor act as you hope.” That truth — which can both delight and confound new puppy caretakers — is at the center of her new book, “ The Year of the Puppy .” A longtime researcher of canine behavior, Horowitz realized she had never examined those critical first months of a dog’s life. So in 2020, she started to observe ...
Dec 16, 2022•51 min
Many dog owners get to enjoy knowing their pet from puppyhood to maturity. Turns out, that life cycle also has a lot to teach us. New research that looks at how dogs age finds parallels between dogs and their human companions. For example, dogs are squirrelly when they are young and calm as they enter midlife. Changes to canine DNA mirror the changes in our own. Could our best friends teach us how to age better — and maybe even live longer? That was the central question MPR News host Kerri Mille...
Dec 13, 2022•43 min
When faced with a tough situation, do you walk away? Or do you press on? Most of us are inclined to stay the course. After all, quitting — especially in American culture — is seen as a character defect. But Annie Duke thinks that’s wrong. Her new book, “ Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away ,” is a guidebook for learning how and when to quit. She explores the psychology and social forces that keep us stuck in bad situations for too long — and what we lose when we equate quitting with fai...
Dec 09, 2022•1 hr 3 min
Why do we do what we don’t want to do? And why can’t we make ourselves do what we want? Humans have puzzled over this one for ages. But science is starting to clear a window into the motives and biology behind self-control. Science journalist John Tierney teamed up with psychologist and researcher Roy F. Baumeister in 2011 to write about it in their book “ Willpower .” For this week’s archive broadcast, you’ll hear a conversation between Tierney and MPR News host Kerri Miller from early 2012 whe...
Dec 06, 2022•46 min
Thirty years ago, David Treuer was a young writer, taking classes at Princeton University, far from his home on the Leech Lake Reservation in northern Minnesota. He was eager to polish his craft — and maybe a little brash. In 1995, a few months before he turned 25, Graywolf Press published his first novel. Now, decades later, Graywolf is rereleasing that book, “ Little .” In the introduction, Treuer — now a widely respected, award-winning author — reflects on his writing roots and how both he an...
Dec 02, 2022•53 min
This month, Graywolf Press republished author David Treuer’s first novel, “ Little .” Originally printed in 1995, when Treuer wasn’t yet 30, “Little” tells the story of a Native American family struggling with loss, poverty and prejudice. What does Treuer think about his debut novel now, 27 years after it was published? MPR news host Kerri Miller will talk with him about that on this Friday’s Big Books and Bold Ideas. In the meantime, enjoy this 2019 conversation from Miller and Treuer about his...
Nov 29, 2022•42 min
When “ The House of Fortune ” opens, Nella Brandt is 37. Almost 20 years have passed since we first met her in “ The Miniaturist ,” Jessie Burton’s wildly popular first book. But not much has changed. Nella still lives in the house she inherited from her dead husband. Many of the same characters inhabit her world — with one addition. Her niece, Thea, is grown and turning 18. And Nella has pinned all her hopes on Thea marrying well. The irony is thick, although Nella doesn’t see it. Nella herself...
Nov 18, 2022•56 min
Jessie Burton's first book, " The Miniaturist ," was an international best-seller and set her on the road to continued success with novels “The Muse” and “The Confession.” Her latest book, “ The House of Fortune ,” is a companion novel to “The Miniaturist.” This Friday on Big Books and Bold Ideas, host Kerri Miller will talk with Burton about that book. In the meantime, enjoy this 2014 conversation from the archives , when the pair discuss “The Miniaturist,” and Burton’s meteoric rise to book st...
Nov 15, 2022•41 min
Poet Ross Gay believes in joy. But he pays careful attention to how one defines that word. It is not simply happiness or delight, he says in his new book “ Inciting Joy .” Rather, it is what grows from the fertile soil of breaking and belonging. It is the light that emanates from us when we help each other carry our sorrows. In his book, Gay writes, “What if joy is not only entangled with pain, or suffering, or sorrow, but is also what emerges from how we care for each other through those things...
Nov 11, 2022•1 hr 10 min
Dani Shapiro knows a thing or two about family secrets. Her early novels center around identity and family history. Her 2019 memoir, “ Inheritance ,” beautifully chronicles what happened after she discovered, at age 54, that the man she considers her dad was not her biological father. That discovery spawned a popular podcast that just kicked off its eighth season, “ Family Secrets ,” which features guests who’ve also stumbled across a family secret. So it naturally flows that her new novel, “ Si...
Nov 04, 2022•1 hr 24 min
