Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller

Danny Ryan doesn’t see himself as ambitious — which is surprising, seeing as he’s both stolen and made millions. But in his mind, he’s just an average guy trying to survive in a world that would rather he not. Ryan is the central character of Don Winslow’s sweeping crime trilogy that draws parallels to movies like “The Godfather” and “Goodfellas.” Readers first met Ryan as a mid-level Irish-American mobster in New England in “City on Fire,” which came out in 2022. One year later, Winslow released “City on Dreams,” which follows Ryan to Hollywood. And now, in 2024, Ryan is a Las Vegas casino mogul struggling to leave his life of crime in “City in Ruins.” It brings both the series and Winslow’s writing career to a close. But not before he joins host Kerri Miller one more time on Big Books and Bold Ideas. Don’t miss this warm and intimate conversation that pulls at the fascinating threads of Winslow’s past — including his years spent as a Shakespeare director at Oxford, his stint as a private investigator and his abiding love of Africa. They also talk about how surfing taught Winslow to trust the writing process, why it took him 30 years to write the Danny Ryan series, and why he is confident that “City in Ruins” is his last book. Guest: Don Winslow has written 21 novels, including “The Border, “The Force, and “Savages.” His new book, “City in Ruins” completes his Danny Ryan trilogy and his writing career. Subscribe to Big Books and Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS or anywhere you get your podcasts. Subscribe to the Thread newsletter for the latest book and author news and must-read recommendations.

Americans overwhelmingly support gender equality. But not as many see themselves as feminists. Elizabeth Cobbs says that’s because we don’t know our history. Her latest book, “Fearless Women,” chronicles how the fight for women’s rights began at the founding of our country, when Abigail Adams urged her husband to “remember the ladies” (and her plea was met with laughter), and continues through today. Cobbs argues that women’s rights and democracy itself are intertwined, that as rights were afforded to women, the country itself became stronger. Each chapter of “Fearless Women” tells the story of women who fought for a new right: the right to learn, the right to speak in public, the right to own property, and the right to vote, among others. It is a timeline of feminism in America. This week, Cobbs joined host Kerri Miller on Big Books and Bold Ideas to talk about the freedom inherent in feminism, why it’s not partisan — despite what some insist — and why many of the women she wrote about in her book have been overlooked by history. Guest: Elizabeth Cobbs is a historian and the Melbern Glasscock Chair in American history at Texas A&M University. Her latest book is “Fearless Women: Feminist Patriots from Abigail Adams to Beyoncé.” Subscribe to Big Books and Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS or anywhere you get your podcasts. Subscribe to the Thread newsletter for the latest book and author news and must-read recommendations.

Myriam J. A. Chancy spent her childhood in Haiti and then moved with her family to Winnipeg. But those island roots shaped who she became and inspired her latest novel, “Village Weavers.” It follows a complicated female friendship that spans decades and countries. Growing up in 1940s Port-au-Prince, Gertie and Sisi are enthralled with each other — until their families discover a secret and force them apart. As girls, they didn’t understand why. But as they grow and weave in and out of each other’s lives, the secrets and lies become a burden to great to carry. Chancy joined host Kerri Miller for this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas to talk about the grief of a ruptured friendship, the love of ancestral lands and how Haiti today bears both the scars and the hopes of its past. Guest: Myriam J. A. Chancy is the author of many novels, including the prize-winning, “What Storm, What Thunder.” Her new book is “Village Weavers.” Subscribe to Big Books and Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS or anywhere you get your podcasts. Subscribe to the Thread newsletter for the latest book and author news and must-read recommendations.

When Kao Kalia Yang’s mother was a child growing up in Laos, she lived a comfortable life. Her father was a prosperous merchant. She was the only Hmong girl in the village to go to school. She felt valued. The war changed all that. Hunted by North Vietnamese soldiers, Yang’s maternal family had to flee into the jungle and live a desperate existence for years. Eventually, her mother met a boy also in hiding, and they married. She was 16. It was an extraordinary chapter in her mother’s remarkable life. Yet when Yang suggested that she record the full story, her mother doubted anyone would care. Related Kao Kalia Yang writes about finding her voice and her mother's journey in two new books For the first time, a Hmong story heads for the opera Kao Kalia Yang started out writing her family’s refugee memoir. Now she’s sharing the journeys of others Thankfully, Yang persisted. Her new book, “Where Rivers Part: A Story of My Mother” is one attempt to capture the drama of her mother’s life. From a riverside village in Laos to a bleak refugee camp in Thailand to a new home in St. Paul, Yang tells the story through her mother’s eyes and captures the grief, determination and pride of the immigrant journey. Yang joined host Kerri Miller on this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas to share what it was like to record the unvarnished truth of her mother’s life and why she couldn’t write this book until now. Guest: Kao Kalia Yang is a Hmong American speaker and writer. She is the award-winning of author of many books, including several about her family, including “The Latehomecomer” and “The Song Poet.” Her latest is “Where Rivers Part.” Subscribe to Big Books and Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS or anywhere you get your podcasts. Subscribe to the Thread newsletter for the latest book and author news and must-read recommendations.

What do you see, hear and experience when you drop miles into the deepest parts of the ocean? For journalist Susan Casey, it was transformative — even emotional. Her latest book, “The Underworld,” is a homage to the abyss and the scientists who explore it. She also describes her own dives in deep-sea submersibles, through the oceanic “twilight zone,” which is rich with bioluminescent creatures, down to depths of 5,000 meters, where utter darkness still teems with life. Casey joined MPR News host Kerri Miller on this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas to share stories about her dives and what she experienced in the abyss. She also talked about how the deep submersible community reacted to the tragic end of the Oceangate Titan sub last summer (“people were watching the creation of that sub with real fear”) and warns of the growing interest in deep sea mining. Guest: Susan Casey is a science journalist who specializes in writing about the ocean. Her latest book is, “The Underworld: Journeys to the Depths of the Ocean.” Subscribe to Big Books and Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS or anywhere you get your podcasts. Subscribe to the Thread newsletter for the latest book and author news and must-read recommendations.

If you’ve ever struggled to remember where you set down your phone, or how you know the person you just ran into at the grocery store, you’re not alone. Everyday forgetfulness is a part of living — and of aging. But for neuroscientist Charan Ranganath, more compelling than what we remember is why we remember. “The human brain is not a memorization machine; it's a thinking machine,” he writes in his new book “Why We Remember: Unlocking Memory's Power to Hold on to What Matters.” Ranganath, a leading memory researcher, joined MPR News host Kerri Miller on this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas to talk about how memory works (spoiler: we’re not designed to remember everything) and how it shapes who we are today. Guest: Charan Ranganath is a neuroscientist and a director of the Dynamic Memory Lab at UC Davis. His new book is “Why We Remember.” Subscribe to Big Books and Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS or anywhere you get your podcasts. Subscribe to the Thread newsletter for the latest book and author news and must-read recommendations.

At the center of Tommy Orange’s new novel sits a family nearly destroyed. It’s suffering the long-term effects of government-ordered separation, from decades of displacement and neglect, and from the white American philosophy best summed up by the phrase: Kill the Indian, save the man. It’s a theme familiar to readers who loved Orange’s first novel, “There There.” In fact, “Wandering Stars” functions as both a prequel and a sequel to that best-seller. Orange joined MPR News Host Kerri Miller on this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas to discuss how he weaves stories that are both historical and modern in an attempt to highlight the importance of family and honoring ancestors as a way to rebuild identity and belonging. Guest: Tommy Orange is an author and a teacher at the Institute for American Indian Arts. His first book, “There There,” was a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize and received the 2019 American Book Award. His new novel is “Wandering Stars.” Subscribe to Big Books and Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS or anywhere you get your podcasts. Subscribe to the Thread newsletter for the latest book and author news and must-read recommendations.

In many ways, the COVID-19 pandemic was public health’s finest hour. Millions of lives were saved, thanks to isolation measures. Vaccines were developed in record time. Systems were developed for contract tracing and testing. But it was also an apocalyptic moment for a system under strain. As a result, trust in doctors and scientists has plummeted. A recent Pew Research Center poll found that Americans who say they have a great deal of confidence in scientists dropped from 39 percent in 2020 to 23 percent in 2023. And that decline happened across party lines. What went wrong? How did public health officials alienate a populace they aimed to protect? Can an eroded sense of trust be restored? Dr. Sandro Galea, epidemiologist and dean at the Boston University School of Public Health, seeks to some of those questions in his new book "Within Reason: A Liberal Public Health for an Illiberal Time." Galea joined host Kerri Miller on this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas to share his post-pandemic diagnosis and offer remedies for how public health can transcend absolutism and intolerance in order to promote well-being for all. Guest: Dr. Sandro Galea is a physician, an epidemiologist and the dean at Boston University's School of Public Health. His new book is, "Within Reason: A Liberal Public Health for an Illiberal Time." Subscribe to Big Books and Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS or anywhere you get your podcasts. Subscribe to the Thread newsletter for the latest book and author news and must-read recommendations.

This week, Big Books and Bold Ideas is launching an election year series that asks: What is American democracy in 2024? Americans come to that question with significantly different views. And what American democracy was when this country was founded isn’t necessarily what it is today or what it will be in the future. Democracy is dynamic. Heather Cox Richardson spends a lot of time thinking about democracy. She’s a historian and the force behind the most popular newsletter on Substack, with more than 1.3 million subscribers. In 2023, she released her latest book, “Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America,” which is a reflection on the the evolution of American democracy. On this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas, Richardson joined host Kerri Miller to parse the current condition of democracy in America and lay out how the system can be exploited by authoritarians or supported by the populace. Guest: Heather Cox Richardson is an author, a historian, a professor Boston College and the writer of Letters from an American, the most popular newsletter on Substack. Her latest book is “Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America.” Subscribe to Big Books and Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS or anywhere you get your podcasts. Subscribe to the Thread newsletter for the latest book and author news and must-read recommendations.

MPR News host Kerri Miller has never skirted the topic of faith. On her former weekday show, she regularly dialoged with leaders like Jenan Mohajir from Interfaith America, activist and author Anne Lamott, theologian Jemar Tisby, Sister Joan Chittister, and evangelical disrupter Rachel Held Evans. She even did a year-long series with women from a variety of faith backgrounds in 2019. So it seemed fitting, during the 2024 winter member drive, to return to this theme and remember a few of the best conversations. Included are portions of Miller’s recent discussion with Pastor Amy Butler, who penned the memoir, “Beautiful and Terrible Things;” Miller’s 2019 conversation with podcaster Misha Euceph about being Muslim in America; and a snippet of the 2023 Talking Volumes season finale with author Margaret Renkl about why Renkl left the Catholic church of her upbringing and found a new one in nature.

Choices made in a moment reverberate for generations, despite best intentions. Vanessa Chan adeptly explores this concept in her debut novel, “The Storm We Made” — a work of historical fiction set in her home country of Malaysia, which was inspired by stories her grandmother would tell. The main character is Cecily, a discontented housewife in 1930s Malaya, who is charmed into becoming a spy for the Japanese during the British occupation. She is increasingly disillusioned with the colonizing force and intrigued by a vision of “an Asia for Asians.” But her decisions ripple through the lives of her children in unforeseen and disastrous ways. Chan doesn’t judge. “Morality is very much dependent on circumstances,” the author tells host Kerri Miller on this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas. “You cannot tell when faced with survival whether or not you’ll be as heroic or as cowardly as you think you’re going to be.” Tune in this week for a warm conversation about roots, family lore and unanswered questions. “I wrote about the ambiguity of right and wrong when survival is at stake,” Chan says in her forward. “I wrote because, at the end of the day, remembering is how we love.” Guest: Vanessa Chan is a Malaysian author. Her debut novel, “The Storm We Made,” was one of the most anticipated books of 2024 and has sold rights in more than 20 countries. Subscribe to Big Books and Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS or anywhere you get your podcasts. Subscribe to the Thread newsletter for the latest book and author news and must-read recommendations.

Women spies pop up in Hollywood movies all the time. But as Liza Mundy’s new book reveals, it took determined persistence, personal risk and a lot of sacrifice for women to be welcomed as CIA operatives. “The Sisterhood” is a meticulously researched, seven-decade history of women who worked behind the scenes at America’s premier foreign intelligence agency. Mundy details how women opened up new avenues of recruiting for assets, formed a team that uncovered a Russian mole operating within the agency and rooted out where Osama bin Laden was hiding. She joined host Kerri Miller on this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas to share stories of the women who fought through blatant sexism to became some of the CIA’s most ingenious operatives. Guest: Liza Mundy is an award-winning journalist and the New York Times bestselling author of five books. Her latest is “The Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women at the CIA.” Subscribe to Big Books and Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS or anywhere you get your podcasts. Subscribe to the Thread newsletter for the latest book and author news and must-read recommendations.

Tracy K. Smith is known for her powerful poetry. She's a Pulitzer Prize winner and former U. S. Poet Laureate. Yet her newest book, “To Free the Captives: A Plea for the American Soul,” is memoir — a classification she initially resisted. But as she tells MPR News host Kerri Miller, she eventually saw that her own story is a kind of microcosm of America’s story. It’s a meditation on who we’ve been, who we are and who we want to become. On this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas, Smith joins Miller to expand on the ideas in her latest work, as it examines the nature of power, freedom, race, prayer, her parent’s lives, her own drinking and what she calls "the conundrum of history.” Guest: Tracy K. Smith’s poetry has won many awards, including a Pulitzer. She was the U.S. poet laureate from 2017 to 2019. Currently, she is a professor of English and African American studies at Harvard University. Her new book is “To Free the Captives: A Plea for the American Soul.” Subscribe to Big Books and Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS or anywhere you get your podcasts. Subscribe to the Thread newsletter for the latest book and author news and must-read recommendations.

Americans’ faith in the value of higher education is faltering. Unlike our global peers, the U.S. is seeing a steady decline in college enrollment and graduation rates, especially among young men. Since 1992, the sticker price for four-year private colleges has almost doubled and more than doubled for four-year public colleges, even after adjusting for inflation. Student debt is paralyzing. And Gen Z is watching. About half believe a high school diploma is sufficient to “ensure financial security.” What can higher education do? Macalester College President Emeritus Brian Rosenberg has some thoughts — but he admits, many in academia won’t like them. His provocative new book is “Whatever It Is, I’m Against It: Resistance to Change in Higher Education,” and he joins host Kerri Miller this week for a discussion that names those things. Is it possible for colleges and universities to stay relevant and adapt to a changing world? Guest: Brian Rosenberg is president emeritus of Macalester College and is currently a visiting professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. His new book is “Whatever It Is, I’m Against It:” Resistance to Change in Higher Education.” Subscribe to Big Books and Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS or anywhere you get your podcasts. Subscribe to the Thread newsletter for the latest book and author news and must-read recommendations.

Are you convinced the U.S. government knows more than it will reveal about UFOs? After doing a deep dive into the history, journalist Garrett Graff is too. But he doesn’t think the cover-up is a necessarily hiding alien life. “There are two obvious cloaks of secrecy that surrounds the government cover-up of its understanding of what UFOs and UAPs (unidentified aerial phenomena) are today,” Graff tells MPR News host Kerri Miller on this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas. “One level is we don’t know what level of public UFO sightings are our own government’s secret development projects.” “The other is that … some chunk of UAPS are advanced adversary technology being tested against us — drones from other countries. So the military doesn’t want to say what it’s detected lest it give away too much.” But is there alien life? Graff feels certain there is. He just doesn’t see proof that it’s visiting earth. His new book looks at the history of UFO sightings in the United States, including the large reports of flying saucers after WWII, UFO conspiracy theories after Watergate and the U.S. government’s efforts in recent years to engage in more open dialogue about extraterrestrial life. Guest: Garrett Graff is a journalist and the author of many books. His latest is “UFO: The Inside Story of the US Government’s Search for Alien Life Here — and Out There.” Subscribe to Big Books and Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS or anywhere you get your podcasts. Subscribe to the Thread newsletter for the latest book and author news and must-read recommendations.

This year, Big Books and Bold Ideas is introducing an occasional series that will feature books on democracy. That series begins as we mark the third anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection. To gain context, we invited three historians and authors from different regions of the country to reflect on this American moment. Can history be a guide to where we are? Do we have the chaos and divisiveness we deserve? How do we approach what comes next with clarity and perspective? Guests: Carol Anderson a historian and professor of African-American studies at Emory University. She’s the author of many books, including “White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide” and “One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression is Destroying our Democracy.” Elizabeth Cobbs is a historian, an author and the Melbern Glasscock Chair at Texas A&M University. Her most recent book is “Fearless Women: Feminist Patriots from Abigail Adams to Beyoncé.” Eric Foner is one of the nation’s leading historians and the author of many award-winning books on the Civil War and Reconstruction, including “The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution.” He is also a professor emeritus at Columbia University. Subscribe to Big Books and Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS or anywhere you get your podcasts. Subscribe to the Thread newsletter for the latest book and author news and must-read recommendations.

“Here is the world,” writes theologian Frederick Buechner. “Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid.” Those words rooted Amy Butler through some of the darkest moments of her life. As Butler slowly embraced her call to be a pastor, she was rejected by her conservative evangelical family, who doesn’t believe women should be in pastoral roles. She was the first woman ever appointed to lead the historic Riverside Church in New York City, but the challenges of breaking the “stained glass ceiling” almost caused her to lose her faith. In her new memoir, “Beautiful and Terrible Things,” Butler takes us inside her life story. She covers joyful and painful moments, including the loss of a child, her unexpected divorce and the hardships of being a woman in ministry. But ultimately, as she tells MPR News host Kerri Miller on this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas, she found that vulnerability is worth it. Butler writes in the introduction, “The invitation to become who we’re meant to be happens at the intersection of human pain and divine hope, and almost always in the context of relationship.” Guest: Rev. Amy Butler is currently pastoring a Baptist church in her home state of Hawaii. Her new book is “Beautiful and Terrible Things: Faith, Doubt and Discovering a Way Back To Each Other.” Subscribe to Big Books and Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS or anywhere you get your podcasts. Subscribe to the Thread newsletter for the latest book and author news and must-read recommendations.

For years, author Jedidiah Jenkins and his mother, Barbara, have flirted with the idea of a cross-country road trip together. The goal: to retrace Barbara’s route across America which she walked with her husband, travel writer Peter Jenkins, in the 1970s. But there is one problem: they have wildly disparate world views. Barbara is a baby boomer who lives in rural Tennessee. She supports Trump, listens to conservative media and is a deeply passionate evangelical Christian. Jedidiah is almost the opposite. He’s a gay man, who lives on the West Coast and is politically progressive. But they love each other. And Jedidiah is keenly aware of his mother’s age and the passing of time. So they set off on their joint adventure, hoping for fresh insight into the complex questions many are asking today: How do we stay in relationship when it hurts? When are boundaries needed? Is it possible to love someone who disagrees with you on almost everything? This week on Big Books and Bold Ideas, Jedidiah Jenkins joined host Kerri Miller for a thoughtful, funny and reflective conversation about mothers, nuance and the key ingredient needed to stay in painful relationships. Guest: Jedidiah Jenkins is an author and adventurer. His latest memoir is “Mother, Nature: A 5000-Mile Journey to Discover if a Mother and Son Can Survive Their Differences.” Subscribe to Big Books and Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS or anywhere you get your podcasts. Subscribe to the Thread newsletter for the latest book and author news and must-read recommendations.

Members of MPR and supporters of The Slowdown came together in mid-October to celebrate poetry with Major Jackson. The poet was in the Twin Cities to speak at the Twin Cities Book Festival, which is where he also learned that The Slowdown — a daily poetry podcast that he hosts — had won the prestigious Signal Award for Best Daily Podcast of 2023. MPR News' Kerri Miller in Conversation with The Slowdown's Major Jackson It was on that jubilant note that he spoke with host Kerri Miller about his love for the art form of words. In the past, he has said that he finds “the writing of a poem a kind of plunging, a willful dive below the surface of who I am.” The Slowdown with Major Jackson Episode 966 Love Poem, with Birds Episode 952 Failed Essay on Privilege Episode 920 Invented Landscape Episode 852 Forestbathing (or Trees) Episode 821 I Have No Idea What's Going to Happen During their conversation, Jackson explored those ideas with Miller. He spoke about how to avoid solipsism when writing poetry, how his childhood faith taught him the musicality of words and why it’s crucial that poetry be a mode of inquiry, not a collection of answers. Guest: Major Jackson is the author of six books of poetry, most recently “Razzle Dazzle.” He teaches writing at Vanderbilt University and is host of APM’s daily poetry podcast, The Slowdown. Subscribe to the MPR News with Kerri Miller podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS or anywhere you get your podcasts. Subscribe to the Thread newsletter for the latest book and author news and must-read recommendations.

To humans, roads are so ubiquitous, they are almost invisible. They crisscross every continent and allow for travel, exploration and connection. But to wildlife, roads are dangerous divisions of habitat. Around a million animals are killed by cars every day. Roads change migration patterns, cut off animals from their food sources and create noise so loud that it drowns out the ability for some animals to communicate with each other or hunt their prey. But road ecologists are working on solutions. In his new book, “Crossings,” Science Journalist Ben Goldfarb lays out the repercussion of roads and invites us to rethink their design. For example, California is planning to build a literal animal crossing over Highway 101, to allow safe passage for a variety of creatures. Goldfarb joined host Kerri Miller on this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas to share what he learned when he started to research road ecology and how scientists are using innovative solutions to minimize the damage roads cause. Guest: Ben Goldfarb is an environmental journalist and author. His latest book is “Crossings: How Road Ecology is Shaping the Future of Our Planet.” Subscribe to the MPR News with Kerri Miller podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS or anywhere you get your podcasts. Subscribe to the Thread newsletter for the latest book and author news and must-read recommendations.