Mpr News With Kerri Miller

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 and sensual as a good meal. But it is the constant trade-offs made by the chef that keep the book evolving.This week, on Big Books and Bold Ideas, host Kerri Miller sat down with Zhang to talk about what moved her to write this book, how her faith background informs her view of science and why she moved from California to New York City during the pandemic. Guest: C Pam Zhang is an author who currently lives in Brooklyn. Her most recent novel is “Land of Milk and Honey.” Subscribe to the MPR News with Kerri Miller podcast 

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 lively exchange, which includes music by singer-songwriter Sarah Morris and closes with a special guest appearance by the author to whom Ann dedicated “Tom Lake” — Minnesotan Kate DiCamillo. Video: Talking Volumes with Ann PatchettGuests:Ann Patchett is the author of many beloved books, including “Commonwealth,” “The Dutch House,” “Bel Canto” and “Truth and Beauty.” Her latest novel is “Tom Lake.” She also owns Parnassus Books, an independent bookstore in Nashville, a

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 we, as a species, are also running into the vast unknown. But like her unnamed protagonist, she finds moments of ecstasy in the starkness of nature, times when she sees her own body experience euphoria in the midst of pain. This week, Groff joined host Kerri Miller on Big Books and Bold Ideas for a conversation about “The Vaster Wilds.” Like her other books, this one plays with themes of feminism, religion and morality, and she dives into all those topics.But she also reveals how many covers she and her publishing house

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 I was three!” Talking Volumes with Abraham Verghese, ‘The Covenant of Water’ It was a pleasure to have him kick off the 2023 season of Talking Volumes. Dr. Verghese joined host Kerri Miller on stage at the Fitzgerald Theater the evening of Sept. 14 and talked about redemption, inspiration, how his “day job” as a doctor informs his writing (and vice versa) and why his belief in the essential goodness of humanity is core to his novels. Their co

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 — just one who had been working in the wrong art form. So she began to write.Her first book, “The Net Beneath Us” won the Edna Ferber Fiction Book Award and told the story of a young woman learning to live close off the land in Wisconsin after her husband has a logging accident. Her new novel, “A Winter’s Rime,” is also set in northern Wisconsin and plays with truths Dunbar has learned firsthand about PTSD, healing and place.This week’s Big Book and Bold Ideas features a conversation between host Kerri Miller and Dunbar. The

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 are actually going to the Caribbean. And another remarks that she has never left her cat. Someone writes in his application that he is “a business major … for obvious reasons. There are no jobs out there for people who just want to read.” It’s enough to push Professor Fitger to the brink — and that is the story told in “The English Experience,” Minnesota novelist Julie Schumacher’s final book in the trilogy that follows Fitger’s academic misadventures. This week, on Big Books and Bold Ideas, Schumacher joined host Kerri

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 developed an aerosol that can weaponize nostalgia, bringing people’s happiest memories to life only to have them be killed by it. ‘Prophet’ doubles as a queer odd-couple romance, thanks to the main characters, whom Blaché and Macdonald fondly call “our terrible men.” Adam is a gruff American super solider, and Rao is a former British intelligence officer who has a gift for telling when people are lying — unless that person is Adam. On this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas, MPR News host Kerri Miller talks with Macdonald an

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 the fine line between compromise and betrayal when it comes to themselves and the people they love.On this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas, Agbaje-Williams joins MPR News host Kerri Miller to discuss the power of female friendships, why her story had to unfold in a single afternoon, and how love and loyalty can shape our lives. Guest:Ore Agbaje-Williams is a British-Nigerian writer. “The Three of Us” is her debut novel. Use the audio player above to listen to the podcast version of the conversation.Subscribe to the MPR Ne

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 with our feathered friends and how the incident that pushed him into the national spotlight distracts from what he sees as the bigger issues.He also shares stories about his work as a Marvel comics writer and has a few tips for want-to-be birders.Guest:Christian Cooper is a science and comics writer and the host and consulting producer of Extraordinary Birder on National Geographic. His memoir is “Better Living Through Birding.”Use the audio player above to listen to the podcast version of the conversation.Subscribe to the

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 realism, that his latest novel centers around a supper club in the fictitious northern Minnesota town of Bear Jaw. Main character Mariel has inherited the Lakeside Club from her grandparents and is wrestling with its future — and her own. Meanwhile, her husband stands to take on his own family’s restaurant legacy, a growing chain of family diners. Which future will they pursue? And will old family wounds deepen in the process, or be healed? This week on Big Books and Bold Ideas, Stradal joined host Kerri Miller in the s

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 there. Like many people who’ve lived through extreme trauma, his mother mostly avoided the topic while she was alive.As Urrea combed through her journals and scrapbooks after her death, he encountered a woman who was marked by her time serving as a Donut Dolly in the war. His new novel, “Good Night, Irene” is not a biography of his mother, but it is inspired by her courage and experiences.This Friday, on Big Books and Bold Ideas, Urrea joined MPR News host Kerri Miller to tell stories about his mother and her fellow Donut D

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. His novel is a collection of jumbled thoughts, inner speak, lyrics and beats from the night Shy attempts to escape the boarding school. Like a cut, “Shy” stings and reminds us we are alive. Don’t miss this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas, when host Kerri Miller talks with Porter. It’s a conversation that ranges from parenting teenage boys to junglist music, to the importance of literacy and the essentialness of trees. Guest: Max Porter is a novelist. His latest book “Shy.” Use the audio player above to listen to the po

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 California, their love story begins. But can their traumas be overcome? It’s a question familiar to author Kent Matsumoto, who together with his wife, Constance, mined his own family history to tell the stories of Ruby and Koji. Their new novel, “Of White Ashes,” tells a fictionalized version of his parents experiences in World War II. Destined to become a classic in the classroom, it artfully depicts the frustration of American citizens being incarcerated by their own country and the horrors of the atomic bomb. MPR News hos

“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 dark moment turned out to be a gift. Snyder found support in unlikely places and forged a new path, one where light and dark coexist and where forgiveness is not synonymous with exoneration. This week, on Big Books and Bold Ideas, Snyder joins MPR host Kerri Miller to talk about her journeys. They discuss how the prosperity gospel dismantles human agency, how her work investigating violence led her to think about her own, and how travel can heal past wounds and open up new vistas. Guest: Rachel Louise Snyder is a journalis

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 none of them had ever sailed around Cape Horn, the southernmost tip of South America, which we now know is one of the most treacherous seas on the planet. The disastrous voyage ended with a shipwreck off the coast of Patagonia. But the story only deepens there. The cadre of men who survived faced starvation, murder and mutiny while trying to find a way home. And once they get there, the competing stories of what really happened on the island transfixed a nation. As he did in his previous best sellers, “Killers of the Flow

Editor’s note: This program was originally preempted by breaking news coverage. The post has been updated to reflect the new broadcast date.Jeannette Wells’ 2009 memoir “The Glass Castle” has been a New York Times bestseller for more than eight years. The movie adaptation starring Brie Larson, Woody Harrelson and Naomi Watts also won awards. Her much-anticipated new book, “Hang the Moon,” is worth the wait. Set in 1920s rural Virginia, it centers on young Sallie Kincaid whose daddy runs the county where they live. Sallie wants to go into the family business, which includes running moonshine. But is she ready to fight through the conflict that awaits her? This week, on Big Books and Bold Ideas, Wells joined MPR News host Kerri Miller to talk about the relative morality of Prohibition in America. “In my neck of the woods, rural Virginia, whiskey making had long been a tradition,” says Wells. ”What Prohibition did was turn this money-making operation, that for many was the only cash crop they had, into something

Joe Milan Jr.’s debut novel, “The All-American,” is about immigration — but it’s not a story about what it means to leave a foreign land and start over in America. Instead, it’s about what it means to leave America, unwillingly, and start over in a foreign land. Milan’s protagonist, 17-year-old Bucky Yi, knows nothing about his birth country of South Korea. Raised in rural Washington, he has only one goal — to become a college football player. But when he tangles with local law enforcement, and his adoptive mom can’t produce proof of U.S. citizenship, Bucky is deported to a country where he knows no one and can’t speak the language.He has to tap into his inner running back to deal with situations both extreme and familiar to any young person on the cusp of adulthood. Is he Korean, or American? Is he Bucky, or Beyonghak? Is he a boy, or a man? Does he want to go home? Or has he made a new home?This Friday, on Big Books and Bold Ideas, Milan joined MPR News host Kerri Miller to talk about his book, his own iden

Minnesota author William Kent Krueger has written 19 books that star his primary protagonist, private investigator Cork O’Connor. But just as central to his writing is the landscape of Northern Minnesota. It’s more than a setting. It’s a character. “I write profoundly out of a sense of place,” Krueger told MPR News host Kerri Miller at a special spring Talking Volumes earlier this month. “When I used to teach writing, I taught place as character. Place is one of the most important and versatile characters in any story.”Don’t miss this warm and revealing conversation between Miller on Krueger, recorded on stage at The College of St. Scholastica in Duluth.They talk about the development of O’Connor as an Irish-Ojibwe man, how Anishinaabe mythology shaped Krueger’s writing and why he believes mysteries should not be underestimated as classic literature. Krueger also shares the jaw-dropping prologue for his next stand-alone novel, “The River We Remember,” which comes out later this year. Miller and Krueger were j

Minnesota writer William Kent Krueger is a fan favorite, thanks largely to his series of crime novels featuring private investigator Cork O'Connor. Krueger joined host Kerri Miller in Duluth earlier this week for a special spring edition of Talking Volumes. You’ll hear that conversation on Friday. So it’s only fitting that this week’s archive is Krueger’s last appearance on the Talking Volumes stage. He was at the Fitzgerald Theater in 2021 to discuss his book, “Lightning Strike.”Guest: William Kent Krueger is a prolific author, known best for his Cork O’Connor mysteries set in Northern Minnesota.Use the audio player above to listen to the conversation.Subscribe to the MPR News with Kerri Miller podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or RSS.Subscribe to the Thread newsletter for the latest book and author news and must-read recommendations.

When Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene proposed the United States would benefit from a “national divorce,” many scoffed and labeled her statements as incendiary pot-stirring.Journalist Jeff Sharlet was not one of them. After traveling the country for more than a dozen years, reporting on the intersection between religion and far-right politics, he believes remarks like Rep. Greene’s should be taken seriously and at face value. His latest book, “The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War,” details what he found as he traveled through states like Wisconsin and Nebraska, talking to ordinary people who love fishing and their neighbors — and also believe another civil war is inevitable and even necessary to correct decades of “immoral decadence.”MPR News host Kerri Miller talks with Sharlet about his reporting on this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas. It’s a sobering conversation about the people Sharlet met and the undercurrent of fascism he sees rippling across the country. Guest:Jeff Sharlet is a journalist and the Ne