Mpr News With Kerri Miller

On the surface, the main characters in Kelly Yang’s new novel, “The Take,” have little in common. Ingrid Parker is a rich, white, female movie producer who has paid her dues and scrapped her way to position of power in Hollywood. Maggie Wang is a young, broke, Asian American writer who is desperately looking for approval and a break. But what they share is an an awareness of time: Ingrid doesn’t have enough. Maggie is impatient for it to move faster.When a medical experiment ties the two together, their individual assumptions about ambition and aging and mentorship and power are challenged. How much are they each willing to sacrifice in the quest to succeed? Yang, who is mostly known for her middle-grade books, including the wildly successful “Front Desk” series, says she wrote her first adult novel because she needed to process what she experienced firsthand in Hollywood. She talks about that and much more with Kerri Miller on this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas. Guest: Kelly Yang is a New York Times bestse

Hans Christian Anderson hoped to find a household straight out of a Charles Dickens novel when he visited the Dickens family at their country home in the summer of 1857. Instead, he found a marriage in shambles, a band of miserable and neglected children and a host who was desperately hoping Anderson would leave — the sooner, the better.But Anderson didn’t leave. He lingered, for five awkward and painful weeks, while the Dickens family disintegrated around him. Francine Prose takes this historic moment and fictionalizes it in her new novel, “Five Weeks in the Country.” Told from multiple perspectives, the book details the very public dissolution of the Dickens family and the very modern question of what to do when good art is produced by a terrible person. On this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas, Prose and host Kerri Miller tackle it all — including why Prose likes reality TV, how she grapples with being a fan of Dickens work without liking Dickens the person, and what it means to write risky, even after you’

The theme for this spring member drive show is family. We mine the Big Books and Bold Ideas archives for the best conversations with authors who’ve used their own histories as inspiration. They include: Luis Alberto Urrea, whose novel, “Good Night, Irene” was inspired by his mother’s wartime experiences — which he didn’t learn the whole truth about until after her death. Poet Safyia Sinclair, who chronicled how her father’s Rastafari faith controlled her childhood home in her memoir, “How to Say Babylon.” Christine Kuehn and her explosive book, “Family of Spies,” which uncovers how her grandparents were Nazi spies who were instrumental in the attack on Pearl Harbor. Subscribe to the Thread newsletter for the latest book and author news and must-read recommendations.Subscribe to Big Books and Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS or anywhere you get your podcasts.

When Tara Menon describes the underwater world that surrounds an island off the coast of Thailand, her language is both restrained and lush.“The reef is busy with color,” she writes, “Fiery scorpion fish, yellow frog-fish, red snappers, white-and-orange clown fish, a shoal of electric-blue angelfish, fat black sea cucumbers, powder-blue surgeonfish. Sand suspended between the dimpled surface glitters in the sunlight.”Her prose, like the story, exemplifies the contrast between the simple joy of true friendship and the aching loss left behind when that gift is stripped away. Menon’s novel, “Under Water,” unfolds before and after the devastating Boxing Day tsunami in 2004, that surged across the Indian Ocean and killed more than 225,000 people. But the heartbeat of the story is the friendship between two girls who each have to navigate a stinging loss. Menon joins Kerri Miller for a conversation about writing, the elegance of restraint and how to avoid sentimentality when building a story around childhood friend

On the day the Sharafs bury their 18-year-old daughter, the girl’s mother is so bereaved, she can barely stand. The father is so anguished, he nearly climbs into the grave himself. But as Patmeena Sabit’s debut novel unspools, it’s up to the reader to parse the truth about the girl’s death — and who may have been accomplices to it. The narrative is told through a kaleidoscope of viewpoints. Fellow Afghan immigrants, journalists and law enforcement each relate what they saw, through their own lens. But eye witnesses can be wrong. Neighbors have an agenda. One person’s truth is another person’s lie. For Sabit, that’s the whole point. “When I was creating the story, I was thinking … about the nature of perception and how reliable that is, and objective truth and if there is an objective truth to any one situation,” she tells Kerri Miller. “Good People” is both a cultural study of a community’s judgement and an interrogation of what it means to be an American — all with a crime at the center of it. Sabit and Mil

Abby Jimenez is a powerhouse. Originally known for starting Nadia Cakes out of her home kitchen, these days she’s known more for her books than her bakery. Her latest rom-com, “The Night We Met,” hit #1 on the New York Times bestseller list one week after it was released. It’s no surprise to her vast fan base. Jimenez writes witty, meet-cute romance books that also tackle real life issues like alcoholism, family trauma and caring for a loved one with dementia. And all her stories are set in or tinged by Minnesota, Jimenez’ adopted home state. What’s not to love? Jimenez joins Kerri Miller on Big Books and Bold Ideas this week, for the first time ever, to talk about the oft-maligned romance genre, how changing views of sex and marriage and masculinity are reflected in her books, why Jimenez always include a content warning before the story and why getting people to read anything these days feels like a win. She also deftly handles a lightning round with Miller, including the romance novel she thinks should be

After “An American Marriage,” her wildly successful 2018 novel, Tayari Jones signed a contract for her next book to be about a woman grappling with gentrification in modern Atlanta. She tried to write that story. But it wasn’t doing that “magical thing that lets you know you have art,” she says on this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas. “It was a good idea. But the book wasn’t booking, as my students say.”And then 2020 happened. A million Americans died from COVID, including some of Jones’ friends. Then George Floyd was murdered. Protests rocked the country. Jones started to wonder if writing a novel even mattered. And then she got sick with an autoimmune disorder. She started to write again just to soothe herself.The new story “kept me company the same way reading a book may keep someone company,” she tells host Kerri Miller. “I loved [main characters] Annie and Niecy. I was eager to see what would become of them. I was delighted with the minor characters. I enjoyed visiting with them — asking them the questi

Kerri Miller hosted a community conversation with presidential historian and author Jeffrey Engel in Red Wing on Wednesday night, April 8. Engel was brought in by the Duff Endowment, as part of their free lecture series, designed to increase civic engagement in the Red Wing area.During their discussion, Engel talked about the expansion of executive power in the United States and how that threatens democracy. He also addressed the current military operation in Iran. His forthcoming book, “Seeking Monsters to Destroy: How America Goes to War, From Washington to Biden and Beyond,” is a history of how American leaders have identified enemies, and how their description alters the way Americans fight.

This week, the Supreme Court heard arguments on the constitutionality of President Donald Trump’s executive order that would undo birthright citizenship. That long-established legal principle was enshrined in the 14th Amendment. In part, it says: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens."In her new book, professor and writer Daisy Hernandez says that legal definition is just one layer of a complicated idea. Citizenship is really about who gets to belong. “We are citizens of the stories we tell,” she writes. “We belong to the stories we scribe about democracy and authoritarianism, about borders and neighbors, about love and grief and one another.” Hernandez joins host Kerri Miller on this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas for a remarkably relevant discussion about her book, “Citizenship: Notes on an American Myth.” She uses her own family’s immigration story as a starting point to examine how class, race, sexism and nationalism all impact who ge

A new book by Minnesota author Louise Erdrich is always reason to celebrate. The acclaimed writer, already graced with a Pulitzer and a National Book Award, returns this month with a collection of short stories, taken from the past 20 years of her work. “Python’s Kiss” includes both previously published and brand new tales. Each is distinct. They include the aunt with four wedding dresses, a young girl who consoles a lovesick dog, immigrant farmers with a tenuous grip on sanity. There are also two speculative stories set in a corporately owned afterlife, stories that Erdrich says make more sense in today’s A.I. environment than they did when she wrote them. 'Python's Kiss' artwork Each chapter is accompanied by specially commissioned artwork by Erdrich’s daughter, Aza Erdrich Abe. Both women join Kerri Miller in the studio for this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas, to talk about the writing, the collaboration and the surpr

What does it mean to live richly, even radiantly, while facing the impending darkness of climate change? How do we stand in awe at the planet we see around us even as we doubt that humanity will intervene in time to save much of what we love about it? Terry Tempest Williams’ new book, “The Glorians,” wrestles with that unraveling — the pull of one strand could undo the pattern that weaves us all together. And yet, as host Kerri Miller says, this book is unexpectedly consoling too. William writes this from her home in the Utah desert: “I can bear witness with awe and gratitude, translating what I see and feel, and then share it as an offering of joy or bewilderment or love.”Williams joins Miller on this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas to talk about glorians — those small moments of awe that anchor our attention — and how to live wide open, holding nothing back, even in the face of despair.Guest: Terry Tempest Williams is an award-winning author of seventeen books of creative nonfiction, including the environme

When it comes to megaliths — massive stones set in place by prehistoric people — Americans are probably most familiar with Stonehenge. But the U.K.’s landscape is punctuated with thousands of these majestic stones. Some are set in circles, others in rows. A few even form doorways that align with the sun at solstice. Long revered for their mythical presence, megaliths woo both curiosity seekers and die-hard enthusiasts. Fiona Robertson falls into that second camp. She was captivated by Britain’s ancient stones from an early age. When she met her husband, Stephen, a shared love of megaliths drew them together. And it was the megaliths who comforted her and gave her room to grieve when Stephen was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Robertson’s new book, “Stone Lands,” is part homage to the grandeur and mystery of megaliths and part memoir of a wrenching loss. This week, on Big Books and Bold Ideas, Robertson shares her love and her consolation with Kerri Miller, as they verbally explore Britain’s megaliths together

Daniyal Mueenuddin grew up in two vastly different worlds. As a child, he lived with his paternal relatives in Lahore, Pakistan. As a teenager, he spent summers on his maternal family’s farm in Elroy, Wis. A product of both of those worlds, Mueenuddin sees himself as a translator of sorts. He intimately knows both U.S. and Pakistani culture — particularly the more rural, faintly feudal villages in southern Pakistan, where he now farms. He knows the distinctives and the overlaps between East and West, between rich and poor, between scarcity and comfort. He’s channeled all of his knowledge into his new novel. Set largely in rural Pakistan, “This is Where the Serpent Lives” tells four interwoven stories that contrast the lives of servants desperate to escape their class, and the wealthy, Westernized elites who employ them. This week on Big Books and Bold Ideas, Kerri Miller talks with Mueenuddin about how his disparate childhood environments shaped his writing, what it’s like to constantly code-switch as he trav

Rock climbing is risky. But so is life. And friendship. And following your dreams. Nothing is promised. Success is not assured. In Gabriel Tallent’s new novel, “Crux,” two 17-year-old best friends are facing down those fears as they climb self-described death rocks. Climbing is both their passion and their escape from futures that feel predestined. They both come from dysfunctional families. They both feel called to climbing and the vulnerability, grit and trust it demands. But risk doesn’t disappear once they get off the rocks.Tallent is, himself, a climber — but as he tells Kerri Miller on this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas, “Crux” isn’t really a climbing book. Instead, it was a chance for him to explore friendship, vulnerability and the risk inherent in wanting more.Guest:Gabriel Tallent is the author of the New York Times-bestselling novel “My Absolute Darling.” His new novel is “Crux.” Subscribe to the Thread newsletter for the latest book and author news and must-read recommendations.Subscribe to Big

When Tracy K. Smith was named U.S. Poet Laureate in 2017, the country was in a fragile place. In her new book, Smith writes that, by then, “we’d come to find ourselves in a climate of language — I’d call it a national vocabulary — grounded in fear, derision, and the notion of an intractably divided nation.”But Smith believes that poetry rises above the grim jargon. In “Fear Less: Poetry in Perilous Times,” she describes poetry as a vehicle equipped to transport us beyond facts and figures to places where we may not even know we want or need to go. Smith joins Kerri Miller on this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas to explore how poetry is uniquely positioned to transform our understanding of each other. Along the way, they trade favorite poems, talk about why it’s crucial that poetry be read out loud and discuss ways to make poetry more approachable — especially for those who only learned to diagram it in school. Guest: Tracy K. Smith is the Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory at Harvard University. She

Change is inevitable. But that doesn’t stop us from fearing it. We fear the uncertainty. We fear the pain. We fear who we might become. But cognitive scientist Maya Shankar says — while understandable — that’s the wrong posture. In her new book, “The Other Side of Change,” Shankar invites us to shift how we view life’s curve balls. What if curiosity was stronger than fear? What if we saw upheaval as an opportunity to reimagine ourselves? On this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas, Shankar joins host Keri Miller to talk about how to harness brain science to build resiliency in the face of change and come out on the other side a kinder, stronger and more open-hearted person. Guest: Maya Shankar is a cognitive scientist and host of the podcast “A Slight Change of Plans.” Her new book is “The Other Side of Change: Who We Become When Life Makes Other Plans.”Subscribe to the Thread newsletter for the latest book and author news and must-read recommendations.Subscribe to Big Books and Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller on A

It takes courage to reimagine a classic. Xiaolu Guo was drawn to Herman Melville’s “Moby-Dick,” from the first time she read it in her native Chinese. The writing was lyrical — hard to translate — and the descriptions of sailing were dense. But the symbolism of the great white whale and the sea-faring captain obsessed with revenge captivated her. Her new novel is a retelling of this classic with a young girl at its center. Protagonist Ishmaelle goes to sea, disguised as a boy, in a desperate grasp for freedom. She wants to leave poverty, gender norms and religious traditions behind. When she ends up on a whaling ship, captained by a free Black man named Seneca, she meets a swash-buckling crew of people who broaden her world — and ours. Guo joins host Kerri Miller this week to talk about her reimagined “Moby-Dick” which probes gender, race, humanity’s connection to animals and the nature of belonging.Guest: Xiaolu Guo is the author of “Radical” and “Nine Continents.” Her new novel is “Call Me Ishmaelle.”Subscr

“You have a good life,” her aunt said. “You don’t want to ruin it with the past.”Those words were deeply unsettling to journalist Christine Kuehn. She always suspected there was more to her paternal family history. Her father was kind but evasive, and her aunt flat out refused to discuss it. But no one would talk. Then she got a letter from a screenwriter who asked if her family could be the same Kuehns who spied on Pearl Harbor for the Nazis and shared intel with the Japanese. When she confronted her father, he denied everything. But within an hour, he called back, sobbing, and confessed.So began Kuehn’s quest to uncover the truth. It took her and her husband Mark decades to sort through FBI files, letters, historical records and family journals — and even longer for her to absorb and process the fact that her grandparents and aunt were accomplished Nazi spies, largely responsible for the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Her new book, “Family of Spies,” tells her family’s shocking history. Turns out, at age 19, Kueh

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 returns to Big Books and Bold Ideas this week to talk with Kerri Miller about the absurdity of the publishing industry today (without naming names, of course) and the inspiration behind “The Award.”

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 our brains have been shaped for social contact, both inside and out. When we don’t get enough social interaction, our bodies are stressed. And in our post-COVID, screen-obsessed world, a good chunk of the population is suffering from too much alone time.Rein joins Miller on this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas to talk about why friendships are as important to health as how often you exercise and how much you sleep, and why online relationships aren’t enough for a brain that’s evolved to expect face-to-face.