Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller

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 a...

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 ...

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 consol...

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...

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...

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, w...

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...

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 de...

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 ...

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 i...

“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...

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 Book...

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 sha...

Only one day after Jen Hatmaker discovered her husband of 26 years was having an affair, her intuition lead her to dissolution, not restoration.

In an early chapter of hew new memoir, Hatmaker writes: “What instinct drove me to an attorney instead of back to a marriage therapist? I was acting purely on intuition — which I only figured out later is the most trustworthy character in the play.”

Learning to listen to...

Big Books and Bold Ideas host Kerri Miller interviews a lot of authors over the course of a year. But some conversations stand out for being especially fascinating, delightfully fun or unexpectedly candid.

Last week, we unveiled three of Miller’s top five favorites from 2025. This week, the final two — plus one surprise.