PODCAST

Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller

Minnesota Public Radio

Where Readers Meet Writers. Conversations on books and ideas, Fridays at 11 a.m.

arts books

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00:51:02

Looking for a chill? 'The Unveiling' is spooky,...

Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller ·

2025/12/12

Bad omens abound. But it’s not enough to dissuade 13 tourists on a luxury cruise to Antarctica — including protagonist Striker, a Black film scout on the ship to search for a location to shoot a movie about Ernest Shackleton — from a kayak excursion on a chilly Christmas Eve. As the group paddles past towering icebergs and desolate landscapes, a sense of unease gives way to full on dread. And then it all goes terribly awry. “Antarctica is the land of illusion,” writes author Quan Barry

00:54:04

Catherine Newman’s witty, warm and wary Rocky returns...

Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller ·

2025/12/05

In Catherine Newman’s bestselling novel, “Sandwich,” main character Rachel (nicknamed Rocky), her unflappable husband and newly adult kids decamp to a ramshackle cottage in Cape Cod for a week of sprawling on the sand, late night swims and lazy mornings. Rocky’s aging parents join them halfway through. It sounds perfect — and in many ways, it is. But as anyone who’s ever take a family vacation knows, complicated feelings get stirred up when you spend 24 hours a day with the people you love

00:51:02

Mary Lucia shares it all in 'What Doesn’t Kill Me...

Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller ·

2025/11/28

For 17 years, Mary Lucia was the voice of The Current, MPR’s music-first radio station. Her afternoon drive shifts were beloved for their rock-and-roll vibes, unpredictable humor and human connection. But then a stalker exploited Lucia’s on-air vulnerability, and everything changed. In her new memoir, “What Doesn’t Kill Me Makes Me Weirder and Harder to Relate To,” Lucia tells the full story of how she dealt with escalating harassment in private while she tried to maintain a very public

01:13:38

Talking Volumes: Kate Baer asks 'How About Now'

Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller ·

2025/11/21

Kate Baer wore sequins to Talking Volumes.It was a fitting close to the 2025 season — and not-so-subtle reminder that today is all we are promised. Might as well wear the sequins. Talking Volumes: Kate Baer Baer’s latest book of poetry, “How About Now,” captures the mundane beauty of what it means to be a modern woman in midlife. She writes of shifting roles and shifting bodies, of the joy she finds in her family —

00:51:06

Oyinkan Braithwaite talks curses, karma and the power...

Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller ·

2025/11/14

Curses have long animated literature. Cassandra labors under a curse in “The Iliad.” Although her prophecies are true, she is never believed. Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” endure the curse of a tragic fate, predetermined, in part, because their families despise each another. In Oyinkan Braithwaite’s long awaited second novel, “Cursed Daughters,” generation after generation of women are cursed to lose their true loves. This week on Big Books and Bold Ideas, Kerri Miller welcomes

00:54:40

The Minnesota author whose book inspired the movie...

Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller ·

2025/11/07

“Nuremberg” opens in the spring of 1945. Hitler is dead. Many of his henchmen have died by suicide, have been arrested or have fled. The world is just beginning to grapple with the horrors committed by the Third Reich. Hermann Göring, Hitler’s second in command, is arrested by American troops in Austria, who discover him heading west in a convoy of family and friends. Ostensibly, he intends to surrender to the Allies. The film tells the story of the American lead prosecutor, Robert

01:42:59

John Grisham talks justice, his new book and why he...

Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller ·

2025/10/31

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 to prove that he can — only to take it out before he sends the manuscript

00:53:46

Anna North's new novel sees an ancient body as sacred...

Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller ·

2025/10/24

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 still telling her story? But it is, as we say today, complicated. Should

01:24:56

Talking Volumes: Misty Copeland on ballet, ‘Bunheads’...

Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller ·

2025/10/17

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 quickly shot into the national spotlight. As a teen, she studied at the

00:41:06

Kate DiCamillo marvels at 25 years of 'Because of...

Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller ·

2025/10/10

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 Newbery Honor the year it was published — a significant award for a debut children’s

01:27:01

Talking Volumes: Patricia Lockwood's new novel is a...

Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller ·

2025/10/03

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 a sharp new novel, “Will There Ever Be Another You.” Talking Volumes:

00:55:42

Patrick Ryan's 'Buckeye' is a sweeping drama set in a...

Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller ·

2025/09/26

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 Jenkins is born with one leg two inches shorter than the other and, thus, is unable

01:35:49

Kerri Miller talks with David French about politics,...

Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller ·

2025/09/25

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. French is a conservative commentator, a constitutional lawyer, former

00:51:11

Journalist Brian Goldstone talks about America's...

Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller ·

2025/09/19

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 his new book, journalist Brian Goldstone writes that there is “something

01:03:36

Talking Volumes: Stacey Abrams talks about democracy,...

Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller ·

2025/09/12

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 determined unity — to stand for and with one another. She got those values

01:04:27

Mike Osterholm reflects on lessons from the pandemic...

Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller ·

2025/09/06

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 of the last pandemic, we will be even less prepared for the next one.Here are

01:01:30

What being a mailman taught Stephen Grant about work,...

Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller ·

2025/08/29

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 — “deeply incompetent,” he writes in his new memoir, “Mailman.” He is shaken by his

00:53:24

Be there pirates? The true story of Capt. Kidd

Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller ·

2025/08/22

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 more nuanced — and interesting. Historian Samuel Marquis, who is also William

00:54:54

‘A Marriage at Sea’ by Sophie Elmhirst

Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller ·

2025/08/15

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 England in a 31-foot yacht. All went well until they reached the Pacific,

00:57:36

Vampires and a happy ending: Three Minnesota romance...

Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller ·

2025/08/08

If you’re a romance reader, you won’t be surprised to hear that romance is the biggest genre in publishing. Nearly 40 million romance novels were sold in 2024. Books range from flirty (fade to black) to downright steamy (open door), with myriads of subgenres and tropes to choose from. (Rom-com! Paranormal romance! Historical fiction!)So this week, Big Books and Bold Ideas host Kerri Miller sits down with three Minnesota romance experts to talk about romance writing and reading today. She

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Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller

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