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 America’s story. It’s a meditation on who we’ve been, who we are and who we want to become. On this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas, Smith joins M...
Jan 26, 2024•52 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 for inflation. Student debt is paralyzing. And Gen Z is watching. About half believe a high school diploma is sufficient to “ensure financial securi...
Jan 19, 2024•58 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 (unidentified aerial phenomena) are today,” Graff tells MPR News host Kerri Miller on this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas. “One level is we don’t know...
Jan 12, 2024•52 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 where we are? Do we have the chaos and divisiveness we deserve? How do we approach what comes next with clarity and perspective? Guests: Carol Anderson a...
Jan 05, 2024•52 min•Transcript available on Metacast “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 pastoral roles. She was the first woman ever appointed to lead the historic Riverside Church in New York City, but the challenges of breaking the “staine...
Dec 29, 2023•51 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 lives in rural Tennessee. She supports Trump, listens to conservative media and is a deeply passionate evangelical Christian. Jedidiah is almost the ...
Dec 22, 2023•52 min•Transcript available on Metacast Members of MPR and supporters of The Slowdown came together in mid-October to celebrate poetry with Major Jackson. The poet was in the Twin Cities to speak at the Twin Cities Book Festival , which is where he also learned that The Slowdown — a daily poetry podcast that he hosts — had won the prestigious Signal Award for Best Daily Podcast of 2023 . MPR News' Kerri Miller in Conversation with The Slowdown's Major Jackson It was on that jubilant note that he spoke with host Kerri Miller ab...
Dec 15, 2023•1 hr 11 min•Transcript available on Metacast To humans, roads are so ubiquitous, they are almost invisible. They crisscross every continent and allow for travel, exploration and connection. But to wildlife, roads are dangerous divisions of habitat. Around a million animals are killed by cars every day. Roads change migration patterns, cut off animals from their food sources and create noise so loud that it drowns out the ability for some animals to communicate with each other or hunt their prey. But road ecologists are working on solutions...
Dec 08, 2023•49 min•Transcript available on Metacast What word or phrase conjures immediate understanding in your family — but puzzled looks from everyone else? In one family, pizza crust is known as “pizza bones.” In another, children who weren’t allowed to say fart were instructed to use the word “foof” instead. This Thursday, MPR News host Kerri Miller talked about “ familect ” with word wizard Anatoly Liberman. Guest: Anatoly Liberman is a linguist and professor of languages at the University of Minnesota. His latest book is, “ Take My Word Fo...
Dec 07, 2023•48 min•Transcript available on Metacast To the strict Rastafari father of Jamaican poet Safiya Sinclair , Babylon was not just an ancient city. It was a symbol for corruption, for wickedness, for decadence and depravity. And it was everywhere. So he kept his family tightly controlled, separate from outside influences that could contaminate. It was in that environment that Sinclair first grew and then stifled. Her father’s Rastafari faith was all-encompassing. While her mother taught her the music of nature and encouraged her to read, ...
Dec 01, 2023•51 min•Transcript available on Metacast What book did you read this year that you immediately recommended to all your friends? That was the topic MPR News host Kerri Miller tackled Monday at 9 a.m. for a special live edition of her regular Friday show, Big Books and Bold Ideas. Instead of chatting with an author, Miller took calls and chatted with Glory Edim , the founder of Well-Read Black Girl, and Julie Buckles , the owner of Honest Dog Books in Bayfield, Wis. Before the show, we asked our social media followers what their favorite...
Dec 01, 2023•48 min•Transcript available on Metacast Can you imagine a day when families visit the moon for summer vacation? When travel to see Saturn’s rings up close is a romantic getaway? When humans living on Mars schedule tours of Olympus Mons — a volcano roughly the size of Arizona? The day is coming. But since it’s not possible quite yet, the would-be space traveler can do the next best thing: Take the scenic route through the galaxy with astronomer and science communicator Philip Plait in his new book, “ Under Alien Skies .” Written as a l...
Nov 17, 2023•52 min•Transcript available on Metacast The 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 familiar to those who’ve read her New York Times columns or her new book, “ The Comfort of Crows .” In it, the self-described backyard naturalist details what she saw in her Tennessee half-acre backyard over the course of 52 weeks. She laughs at the bumblebees and fusses over foxes. She laments the absence o...
Nov 10, 2023•2 hr 41 min•Transcript available on Metacast On July 7, 2016, a Black gunman ambushed Dallas police officers working a peaceful protest, shooting 14 and killing five. The trauma surgeon who worked to save many of those officers — Dr. Brian H. Williams — made headlines when he spoke at a press conference after the incident. In an emotional moment, he confessed his complicated feelings as a Black man in America to the mix of race, policing and guns. “I want the Dallas P.D. to also see me, a Black man, and understand that I support you, I wil...
Nov 03, 2023•51 min•Transcript available on Metacast Viet Thanh Nguyen has a critical mind. He’s critic of populist politics. He’s a critic of history. He’s a critic of the country where he was born, Vietnam, and he’s a critic of the country he calls home, the United States. He’s even a critic of his own memories. But Nguyen says his captious lens isn’t meant to blister. It’s simply meant to reveal truth. And if you write truthfully, you will likely offend. Talking Volumes with Viet Thanh Nguyen Nguyen joined host Kerri Miller on stage at the Fitz...
Oct 27, 2023•2 hr 34 min•Transcript available on Metacast In C Pam Zhang’s dystopian not-too-distant future, the planet is covered in a crop-killing smog. Food as we know it is rapidly disappearing to be replaced by a gray, mung bean flour. Zhang’s protagonist, a young unnamed Asian chef, decides to flee her dreary career and lies her way into becoming the head cook at a mountaintop research community, where the sky is still clear and the uber-rich work to recreate and hoard the world’s biodiversity. The prose in “ Land of Milk and Honey ” is as rich a...
Oct 20, 2023•48 min•Transcript available on Metacast Ann Patchett is a perennial favorite at Talking Volumes. So it’s no surprise that she sold out the Fitz for her conversation with host Kerri Miller on Sept. 28. What ensued was a raucous two hours of honest conversation. Just a few of the topics they covered: Ann’s “shiny new attitude” about book tours, how to be a feminist while still making dinner every night, why Ann keeps a drawer stocked with $20s in her desk and — last but certainly not least — Ann’s new novel, “Tom Lake.” Don’t miss this ...
Oct 06, 2023•2 hr 51 min•Transcript available on Metacast Lauren Groff’s new novel, “The Vaster Wilds,” begins in the bleak winter of 1609, when the residents of the early American colony of Jamestown are diseased and starving. A young servant girl, who was brought to the new world by a prosperous and indifferent family, decides to run from the desolation. But she leaves Jamestown not knowing her direction, her surroundings or even her name. Can she survive the untouched wilderness? Groff says her new book is haunted by climate change — the fact that w...
Sep 29, 2023•52 min•Transcript available on Metacast When Dr. Abraham Verghese released his debut novel in 2009 it was an literary marvel. “Cutting for Stone” captivated readers, sold more than 1.5 million copies in the U.S. alone and remained on the New York Times bestseller list for two years. Readers had to wait 14 years for another book by Verghese, but by all accounts, his new novel was worth the wait. Oprah Winfrey named it a book club pick, called saying it was “one of the best books I’ve read in my entire life — and I’ve been reading since...
Sep 22, 2023•2 hr 44 min•Transcript available on Metacast Carol Dunbar didn’t set out to be an writer. For more than a decade, she was an actress based in the Twin Cities. She told stories by embodying them. But then she and her husband — also an actor — decided to leave it all behind. They moved off the grid, to rural Wisconsin, so her husband could handcraft furniture. It was there, while learning to split wood and pump water and raise two toddlers in the midst of the chaos, that Dunbar came to the stunning conclusion that she was a storyteller — jus...
Sep 15, 2023•49 min•Transcript available on Metacast Jason Fitger is not a likeable character. A creative writing professor at the fictitious Payne University, an aptly named small liberal arts college in the Midwest, Fitger is cantankerous and acid-tongued, beleaguered and inappropriate. He doesn’t really like students — and he doesn’t like England, which is where he has been pressured into leading a study abroad program. The students on the tour are equally hapless. For the most part, this is their first trip away from home. One believes they ar...
Sep 08, 2023•55 min•Transcript available on Metacast The first time Helen Macdonald and Sin Blaché met, it was to finish the book they had been cowriting for a year. Macdonald, author of the best-selling “ H is for Hawk ,” and Blaché, an artist living in Ireland, first met online. During the COVID lockdowns, bored and restless, they started to play with the idea of writing a book together. Chapters began to fly digitally over the Irish Sea. What resulted is “ Prophet ,” a fast-paced techno-thriller that centers around a lethal mystery: Someone has...
Sep 01, 2023•56 min•Transcript available on Metacast A pair of best friends determine to leave behind their conservative families and societal expectations, and live by a new motto: By Myself, For Myself. What happens when one of those friends marries, and the other friend sees the new husband as a betrayal of their values? That’s the premise behind British-Nigerian author Ore Agbaje-Williams debut novel, “ The Three of Us .” The story plays out on a single wine- and whiskey-soaked afternoon, when the wife, husband and best friend Temi toy with th...
Aug 18, 2023•55 min•Transcript available on Metacast Christian Cooper’s visibility as a lifelong birder exploded after a woman in Central Park refused to leash her dog and reported, wrongly, that she was being threatened. Three years later, Cooper is out with a powerful new memoir and a National Geographic TV show he hopes will attract more people of color to the world of bird-watching. Don’t miss this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas, when Cooper talks with host Kerri Miller about how a self-described nerdy gay kid from Long Island fell in love wi...
Aug 10, 2023•56 min•Transcript available on Metacast J. Ryan Stradal knows supper club culture. Growing up in Hastings, Minn., his family milestones were marked by dressing up, sitting in a leather booth at the Wiederholt's Supper Club, picking at a relish tray and watching the grown-ups enjoy a brandy Old Fashioned. He even worked at a supper club across the river, in Prescott, Wisc., where he went behind the double-swinging doors and had his views about restaurant work forever changed. So it is with a deep sense of fondness, with a side of r...
Aug 04, 2023•52 min•Transcript available on Metacast Until writer Luis Alberto Urrea inherited his mother’s journals, he knew very little about what she’d seen and done in World War II. He knew she served on a team of Donut Dollies , women who volunteered with the Red Cross to provide mobile food, entertainment and comfort to U.S. servicemen station on many European battlefronts. But he didn’t know she’d been on the front lines in one of the most ferocious battles, or that the nightmares she suffered her whole life stemmed from her experiences the...
Jul 28, 2023•54 min•Transcript available on Metacast Shy, the teenage boy at the heart of Max Porter’s latest novel, defies classification. He is moody and violent, traits which heartbreak his mother and get him sent to the Last Chance boarding school. He is also sensitive and vulnerable, a boy who seems to be missing a layer of skin to protect himself from the world’s hypocrisy and starkness. This paradox is at the heart of “Shy” — and in fact, the heart of most teenagers. Porter took pains to not describe Shy’s inner world but to transcribe it. ...
Jul 21, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Transcript available on Metacast When Ruby Ishimaru and her family are sent away from Hawaii to a mainland internment camp in 1942, Ruby packs her treasures — photographs, seashells and the books of Laura Ingalls Wilder. She finds comfort in Laura’s adventures even as she and her family are thrust into the frightening unknown. On the other side of the world, the unknown is also baring down on Japan, where young Koji Matsuo watches the country rally for war from his home in Hiroshima. When Ruby and Koji eventually meet in Califo...
Jul 14, 2023•52 min•Transcript available on Metacast “Cancer took my mother. But religion would take my life.” So writes journalist Rachel Louise Snyder in her new memoir, “ Women We Buried, Women We Burned .” It recounts with brutal honesty how the death of her mother upended her previously peaceful world, launching her father into a new marriage within the confines of a strict, fundamentalist Christianity. Violence and rage became her new norm, until she was kicked out at age 16 for refusing the obey the many rules her father imposed. But that d...
Jul 07, 2023•1 hr 6 min•Transcript available on Metacast The latest book from journalist and bestselling author David Grann details the true story of a 1741 shipwreck that he believes has "surprising resonance … with our own contemporary, turbulent times.” When a squadron of ships left England in the fall of 1740, with secret hopes of capturing a Spanish galleon filled with gold, they had little idea what might befall them. They were overloaded with men, many who were old and infirmed. They were equipped with rudimentary navigation tools. And non...
Jun 30, 2023•53 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
