Mpr News With Kerri Miller

Diana Abu-Jaber’s family has deep roots in Jordan. Her father came to America after a failed marriage proposal — an act of “revenge immigration,” she laughs. And while he lived in the U.S., married here and raised a family here, his never truly left his homeland behind. Growing up in a thoroughly Jordanian household within an American context shaped Abu-Jaber’s life. She traveled to Jordan with her family and was often startled to discover hidden aspects to her father during her visits. It was this mix of identity and heritage, of belonging to a culture or land that one can no longer possess, that inspired her latest novel, “Fencing with the King” — so named because she learned, later in life, that her father was once a favorite sparring partner with the king of Jordan. “It’s like he had a before and after life,” she tells MPR News host Kerri Miller on this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas. “Dad was trained to spar with King Hussein, and this was something he never talked about when we were growing up. I didn’

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-American National Book Award. Guest: Diana Abu-Jaber is an award-winning author and a professor at Portland State University. Her latest book, “Fencing with the King,” was just released in paperback. To listen to the full conversation you can use the audio player above.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.

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 northeastern United States. Populated by Native Americans, freed slaves and European Americans, the inhabitants led a sheltered — some would say naïve — life, unaware of the uniqueness of their situation. Their community was shattered in 1911, when Maine government officials inspected the island and found the mixed races offensive. All 47 residents of Malaga were evicted, and some were rehoused in institutions for the "feeble-minded."Maine publicly apologized for this deed in 2010. But the real-life story inspired H

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 humbling and inspiring emotion in our bodies when we encounter something mysterious that transcends our understanding of the world. A researcher and professor of psychology, Keltner has spent the last few years studying awe and how it moves us. He used unconventional and imaginative methods to measure how awe shrinks a person’s sense of self. He’s talked to countless people about their experiences of awe. And he’s searched for it himself, after the death of his beloved brother. This Friday, on Big Books and Bold Ideas, K

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 Minneapolis artist MAYYADDA.Enjoy that conversation as an appetizer to what’s coming this Friday, when Miller talks with psychologist and professor Dacher Keltner about his new book that delves into the impact of another universal emotion — awe. Guest:Ross Gay is a poet, an essayist, a gardener and a professor. His newest book is “Inciting Joy.”To listen to a lightly edited version of the Talking Volumes conversation, use the audio player above. Note that it does contain some explicit language. You can also find the video on Yo

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’ native Alabama, and ends up being both a celebration of Black joy and an examination of the opposing viewpoints about the end of segregation in America. This Friday, on Big Books and Bold Ideas, Minnicks joined host Kerri Miller to talk about the history of all-Black towns, why she wanted to tell their stories and how “separate but equal” was both a gift and a blow. Guest: Jamila Minnicks is a self-declared recovering lawyer turned author. Her debut novel is “Moonrise Over New Jessup.” To listen to the full conversation

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 began a shift within Petrzela. She started to move her body and like it. She became a fitness instructor and taught classes, even as she ended up working in academic. And as a historian, she couldn’t help but look around her secondary world and wonder: How did this fitness culture come to be?Her new book, “Fit Nation,” is the result of digging in to that question. The book charts the evolution of our collective attitudes toward exercise. From body builders on the beach in the 1940s, to Jack LaLanne introducing exercise

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 India’s misty, mountain villages to noisy, vibrant cities, with characters that embody the nation’s extremes. This Friday, on Big Books and Bold Ideas, MPR News host Kerri Miller talked with Kapoor about gangster capitalism in India, about ill-fated love, and about what honor and nobility mean in a time of intense change. Guest: Deepti Kapoor grew up in northern India and worked for several years as a journalist in New Delhi. “Age of Vice” is her second novel, which she wrote from her home in Lisbon. To listen to the fu

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 one of the most anticipated books of 2022, Emily St. John Mandel. Her novel, “Sea of Tranquility,” is a sequel of sorts to her hit 2014 book, “Station Eleven.” Guest:Emily St. John Mandel is the best-selling author of five novels, including “Station Eleven” and “The Glass Hotel.” In 2022, she released the best seller, “Sea of Tranquility.”To listen to the full conversation you can use the audio player above.Subscribe to the MPR News with Kerri Miller podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or RSS.Subscribe to the Thread ne

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 mixed race adoptee in Ann Arbor, Mich. — and an alternate reality where her biological mom doesn’t give her up, and Shannon Gibney grows up as Erin Powers, the name she was given at birth.Race, identity and adoption are powerful themes in what she calls a '“speculative memoir.”This week on Big Books and Bold Ideas, Gibney joins host Kerri Miller to talk about why she chose this genre to tell the parallel stories of her life, and how she filled the holes in her history that adoption left be