Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller

The Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul was packed with John Grisham fans on Thursday, Oct. 23, when the prolific author made his debut at Talking Volumes.

Host Kerri Miller started the night by asking the audience and then Grisham himself to confirm or deny a series of facts. Does Grisham breed champion sheepdogs at his home in Virginia? Has he been knighted? Does he write a sizzling sex scene for each of his books, just ...

The two women at the center of Anna North’s new novel, “Bog Queen,” are separated by time but inexorably bound. One is a druid who lived during the Iron Age. The other is the modern forensic scientist who is called upon to investigate the druid’s perfectly preserved body after it is unearthed from a British bog.

Agnes is drawn to the mystery and even sacredness of her work. Who was this woman, and how is her body stil...

Even before Misty Copeland became the first Black woman to be named a principal dancer at the illustrious American Ballet Theatre, she electrified the world of ballet.

A prodigy who didn’t start dancing until she was 13, she grew up in a transient and often chaotic home. But after she was discovered in a Boys & Girls Club in Los Angeles by a ballet teacher who wanted to expose more kids to the art form, she quickl...

Twenty-five years ago this fall, a generation of readers met 10-year-old India Opal Buloni and her loveable, scruffy dog, Winn-Dixie — so named because Opal found the canine while he was causing chaos in the produce aisle of the local grocery store.

Winn-Dixie transformed Opal’s life, as only a dog can do.

And their story changed those who read it, as only a book can do.

“Because of Winn-Dixie” received a Newb...

When Patricia Lockwood contracted COVID-19 in the spring of 2020, she lost touch with reality. For months, she floated through her days, dealing with constant migraines and visions of gorillas lurking in the trees.

Ironically, she was mostly aware that she was cut loose from humanity. She kept notebooks filled with her wonderings and ramblings.

And when she got better, she gathered her shattered experiences into ...

The fictional Bonhomie, Ohio, where Patrick Ryan’s new novel, “Buckeye,” is set, will be familiar to anyone who grew up in a small town.

Children ride their bikes freely. Mom-and-pop stores thrive. And sooner or later, everyone crosses paths with each other.

That sense of closeness is charming — until you have a secret to hide. Such is the case with the two couples at the center of Ryan’s sweeping saga. Cal Jenkin...

The final ballots were still being counted in the presidential election last fall when David French recorded a podcast with fellow opinion writer Patrick Healy. The theme? “It’s time to admit America has changed.”

Kerri Miller welcomed the chance to ask French to expound on what he meant then and what he’s learned since when he came to Red Wing last Thursday night as part of the Philip S. Duff Jr. Civic Lecture Series...

When the Wilder Foundation set out on a cool night in October of 2023 to count how many people in Minnesota were without shelter, the number came in at more than 10,000.

Even more sobering, if national statistics apply: Many of those unhoused people have jobs. Some even work 40 or more hours a week. But they still can’t afford to rent an apartment, buy a house or even pay the fees for a long-term motel room.

In h...

The Fitzgerald Theater was filled to the rafters Wednesday night for the season launch of Talking Volumes. Activist and novelist Stacey Abrams joined Kerri Miller on stage and began the evening with a moment of silence to mark the political assassination of Charlie Kirk, who had been shot and killed only hours earlier.

Abrams, herself a national political figure, said dark moments such as these need to be met with det...

When the next pandemic hits, will we be ready?

That’s the question at the center of University of Minnesota epidemiologist Mike Osterholm’s new book, “The Big One.” And his answer is sobering.

Osterholm joined Kerri Miller on this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas for a blunt and personal assessment of what went right and what went wrong during the COVID-19 pandemic. He’s insistent that if we don’t learn the lessons ...

Stephen Grant was laid off from his job at a boutique marketing agency in March 2020, right when COVID took the world hostage.

Newly diagnosed with cancer, he needed health insurance, fast — plus, he was the primary financial supporter of his wife and daughters. Which is how he found himself becoming a mail carrier, back in his hometown in rural Appalachia.

It was a tough transition. Grant was bad at his job — “d...

In the seas off Madagascar, Nova Scotia and even Connecticut, the siren call of buried riches has lured treasure hunters and adventurers over many a century.

Many seek the wealth Capt. Kidd accrued during years of pirating and then had to hide when his arrest was imminent.

In popular lore, Capt. Kidd’s name is synonymous with the fearsome, ruthless privateers of the pirate age. But the truth about William Kidd is...

Maralyn and Maurice Bailey were always a little unconventional. Maurice was a loner, precise. Maralyn was extroverted and energetic. But when they married in the 1960s, they both felt they had found their person.

Together, they dreamed of running away from their ordinary lives — of selling everything and sailing the world. And in 1972, they made it happen. They set course for a fresh start in New Zealand and left Engl...