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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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00:51:23

Eric Puchner’s new novel circles around a love...

Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller ·

2025/04/11

Can one decision be the fulcrum of a life?Or is destiny really millions of tiny choices swirled with events out of our control? That’s one of the many questions at the heart of Eric Puchner’s gorgeous new novel, “Dream State.” It’s received a dizzying amount of praise since it was released in February — making the New York Times best seller list, becoming an Oprah Book Club pick. But despite the buzz, the novel is deceptively hard to pin down. Set in rural Montana, the book begins with two

00:52:10

Chris Bohjalian's new novel about the Civil War sees...

Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller ·

2025/04/04

For more than 20 years, author Chris Bohjalian carried the seed of a Civil War story in his imagination. It was inspired by the true story of a Southern woman who nursed a Union soldier back to health after he was injured on the battlefield. But the idea didn’t grow roots until the racial uprisings after the murder of George Floyd, when Confederate statues came tumbling down. “Years ago, Tony Horowitz wrote a remarkable book called ‘Confederates in the Attic,’ wondering why so much of the

00:57:43

When the world is underwater, what will we save? A...

Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller ·

2025/03/28

When superstorm Sandy wreaked havoc on Eiren Caffall’s childhood home of New York City, her first thought was: What about the museums? That distressing question provoked her first novel, “All the Water in the World.” In this futuristic dystopia, climate change is unchecked. Cities are drowned, people are adrift. But already, some are thinking of the after by looking to the past. The former curators and researchers at the American Natural History Museum have taken up residence on the

01:00:49

This author witnessed South Africa’s Truth and...

Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller ·

2025/03/21

Lauren Francis-Sharma was a young law student interning in Johannesburg in 1996 when she was given the opportunity to observe portions of the Truth and Reconciliation Amnesty Hearings, which were set up to expose the horrors of apartheid in South Africa. Listening to testimony of atrocities and knowing that these public confessions came with exoneration changed her. She filled legal pad after legal pad with stories and kept them for decades. “I think it’s brilliant, in some respects — how a

00:51:15

'The Trouble of Color: An American Family Memoir'

Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller ·

2025/03/14

When historian Martha Jones began excavating the history of her own family, she found a remarkable story of what she calls the trouble with color. But that might not mean what you think.“In this book, the term trouble has two meanings,” Jones tells Kerri Miller on this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas. ”I open the book with the lyrics of a spiritual, ‘Wade in the Water.’ You know, ‘God’s gonna trouble the water.’ And that comes from the book of John. In the book of John, we learn that when

00:54:12

Health psychologist explains how to change your...

Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller ·

2025/03/07

Why do some people view winter as a magical season when others see it as something to dread? The secret is in the mindset, according to health psychologist Kari Leibowitz. She spent a year doing research in Tromsø, Norway studying how the people who live above the Arctic Circle celebrate deepest winter. What she discovered is that it goes beyond hygge. It depends on where your brain settles its focus. “Winter is many things. It’s paradoxical,” says Leibowitz. “Yes, it’s cold and dark, and

00:50:51

Novelist Geraldine Brooks reflects on the abrupt loss...

Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller ·

2025/02/28

Grief didn’t come easily to novelist Geraldine Brooks. When her husband, journalist and author Tony Horowitz, died of a cardiac event on a Washington, D.C., sidewalk, she was stunned. He was only 60. What happened? But she didn’t have time to mourn, seeing as her boys needed support, her books needed writing, the world needed answers. As she describes in her new book, “Memorial Days,” it took her three years to recognize she was operating on autopilot, disassociated from her life and her

00:53:07

Lindsay Chervinsky’s new book ‘Making the Presidency’...

Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller ·

2025/02/21

Lindsay Chervinsky knew other historians had written extensively about America’s second president, John Adams. But none of those books were written before January 6, 2021, when an insurrection at the nation’s capitol ended the tradition of peacefully transferring power in the U.S. — a tradition that started with Adams himself. In her new book, “Making the Presidency,” Chervinsky looks back at Adams life and focuses on how George Washington’s successor shaped the presidency in the final

00:53:30

Valentine’s Day special: Unpacking all kinds of love...

Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller ·

2025/02/14

It’s Valentine’s Day! To mark the occasion, Big Books and Bold Ideas is dipping into the archives to focus on love — and not just romantic love. This show highlights love of all kinds: familial love, love between friends, even the love of books. We start with Leif Enger, who joined host Kerri Miller in Red Wing last June to talk about his novel, “I Cheerfully Refuse.” Enger’s latest book is dystopian in nature, but at its heart, it’s a love story. We then dip into Miller’s conversation with

00:53:47

Fabienne Josaphat’s ‘Kingdom of No Tomorrow’ explores...

Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller ·

2025/02/07

At what cost revolution? In Fabienne Josaphat’s new novel, “Kingdom of No Tomorrow,” 20-year-old Nettie Boileau trades the turmoil of Duvalier’s Haiti for the tumult of 1960s America. Settling with her aunt in Oakland, she is drawn to the social programs spearheaded by the burgeoning Black Panther Party. But her focus on healing and public health is soon subsumed by the revolution and her passionate relationship with Black Panther leader Melvin Mosley. Josaphat drew on her own family’s

00:52:37

In her new memoir, Sarah Hoover offers an unflinching...

Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller ·

2025/01/31

Sarah Hoover knows her new memoir, “The Motherload,” isn’t flattering. She’s made peace with the fact that “people will judge me on the internet,” as she says on this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas.She’s telling her story anyway because she believes an honest rendering of modern motherhood is necessary. “In my defense, birth and motherhood did not match up to the narrative I’d been fed, and it felt like a nasty trick,” she writes. “And while my mental breakdown was embarrassing at times,

00:57:32

Histories collide at the dawning of a new age in ’The...

Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller ·

2025/01/24

David Wright Faladé didn’t learn the truth about his lineage until he was 16. That’s when his mother told him that his biological father was a West African student she initially met in post-war Paris, as she grappled with the trauma of her Jewish family surviving the Holocaust. It was a shock to a mixed-race boy growing up in the panhandle of Texas, playing football and drinking Slurpee’s in 1970s America. But the surprises didn’t stop there. When Wright Faladé eventually moved to France

00:51:31

On the brink of the inauguration, historians reflect...

Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller ·

2025/01/17

President-elect Donald Trump will be inaugurated for a second term on Monday, Jan. 20. So this week, Big Books and Bold Ideas asked two historians who’ve written about America’s past to reflect on America’s future and give us a broader view of where we are. They point to eras in our past that predict our present. They also discuss what they’ll be watching for as Trump returns to the Oval Office.Guests:Carol Anderson a historian and professor of African-American studies at Emory University

00:57:32

Naturalist Robin Wall Kimmerer on her new book, ‘The...

Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller ·

2025/01/10

Robin Wall Kimmerer embodies an abundance mindset. The naturalist and author sees the world through the lens of her Anishinaabe ancestors, where interdependence is reality, and humans are neither above nor below the natural world. We are just one part, kin to every animal and plant and stream. Her beloved book, “Braiding Sweetgrass,” laid out this philosophy. Published in 2013, it enjoyed a gentle rise to public consciousness, not jumping onto the bestseller list until six years after

00:51:46

Why some college students aren’t reading books

Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller ·

2025/01/03

In Nov. 2024, The Atlantic’s cover article rang alarm bells among readers, writers, college professors and parents alike. The article was headlined: The Elite College Students Who Can’t Read Books.The premise is that many students admitted to elite colleges arrive having read very few books all the way through.“It’s not that they don’t want to do the reading,” says the article. “It’s that they don’t know how. Middle and high schools have stopped asking them to.”This week on Big Books and

00:56:22

Christopher Bollen unleashes 'Havoc' with his new...

Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller ·

2024/12/27

00:51:29

A bereaved single father navigates a new path forward...

Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller ·

2024/12/20

00:52:07

In her new book, journalist Brigid Schulte asks what...

Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller ·

2024/12/13

00:53:31

The gut's curious history

Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller ·

2024/12/06

00:48:00

Dr. Marty Makary on medicine's blind spots

Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller ·

2024/11/22

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Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller

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