Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller

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.”

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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

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  Episode 966 Love Poem, with Birds
  
  


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  Episode 952 Failed Essay on Privilege
  
  


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  Episode 920 Invented Landscape
  
  


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  Episode 852 Forestbathing (or Trees)
  
  


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  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 Jacksonis the author of six books of poetry, mostrecently “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 podcastonApple Podcasts,Google Podcasts,RSSor anywhere you get your podcasts.

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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 podcastonApple Podcasts,Google Podcasts,RSSor anywhere you get your podcasts.

Subscribe to the Thread newsletterfor the latest book and author news and must-read recommendations.

What word or phrase conjures immediate understanding in your family — but puzzled looks from everyone else?

In one family, pizza crust is known as “pizza bones.” In another, children who weren’t allowed to say fart were instructed to use the word “foof” instead.

This Thursday, MPR News host Kerri Miller talked about “familect” with word wizard Anatoly Liberman.

Guest:

• Anatoly Libermanis a linguist and professor of languages at the University of Minnesota.His latest book is, “Take My Word For It: A Dictionary of English Idioms.”

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To the strict Rastafari father of Jamaican poet Safiya Sinclair, Babylon was not just an ancient city. It was a symbol for corruption, for wickedness, for decadence and depravity. And it was everywhere.

So he kept his family tightly controlled, separate from outside influences that could contaminate.

It was in that environment that Sinclair first grew and then stifled. Her father’s Rastafari faith was all-encompassing. While her mother taught her the music of nature and encouraged her to read, her father became obsessed with keeping his daughters pure. So they had few friends or hobbies, outside of schoolwork. Sinclair dreaded adolescence, when she knew menstruation would make her unclean. She grudgingly kept her dreadlocks — a symbol of Rastafari piety — and chafed under her father’s gospel that good Rasta women are submissive and quiet.

But Sinclair found her voice in poetry. In her new memoir, “How to Say Babylon,” Sinclair recounts her journey from a subdued and sheltered daughter into a strong and self-assertive woman.

This week on Big Book and Bold Ideas, Sinclair joined host Kerri Miller to talk about the perils of fundamentalism and patriarchy, in all its forms, and how she wrote a memoir about her childhood that both honors her family and her own truth.

Guest:

• Safiya Sinclair is a Jamaican poet and memoirist. Her debut poetry collection, “Cannibal,” won several awards. Her new memoir is “How to Say Babylon.”

Subscribe to Big Books and Bold Ideas with Kerri MilleronApple Podcasts,Google Podcasts,RSSor anywhere you get your podcasts.

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What book did you read this year that you immediately recommended to all your friends?

That was the topic MPR News host Kerri Miller tackled Monday at 9 a.m. for a special live edition of her regular Friday show, Big Books and Bold Ideas. Instead of chatting with an author, Miller took calls and chatted with Glory Edim, the founder of Well-Read Black Girl, and Julie Buckles, the owner of Honest Dog Books in Bayfield, Wis.

Before the show, we asked our social media followers what their favorite books of the year were and the top responses were: “Lessons in Chemistry” by Bonnie Garmus, “Tom Lake” by Ann Patchett and “Demon Copperhead” by Barbara Kingsolver.

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  The best children’s books to give as gifts for the holidays
  
  


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  From NPR Books We Love
  
  

Kerri’s picks

• “Age of Vice” by Deepti Kapoor




• “How to Say Babylon” by Safiya Sinclair




• “State of Wonder” by Ann Patchett




• “The Unwinding of the Miracle: A Memoir of Life, Death, and Everything That Comes After” by Julie Yip-Williams




• “The Last Ranger” by Peter Heller




• "Tom Lake" by Ann Patchett

Julie’s picks

• “Good Night, Irene” by Luis Alberto Urrea




• “Bel Canto” by Ann Patchett




• “The Paris Bookseller” by Kerri Maher




• “The Diary of a Bookseller” by Shaun Bythell




• “You Could Make This Place Beautiful: A Memoir” by Maggie Smith




• “The River: A Novel” by Peter Heller

Glory’s picks

• “Company: Stories” by Shannon Sanders




• “Witness” by Jamel Brinkley




• “The Fraud” by Zadie Smith




• “The Color Purple” by Alice Walker




• “Family Lore” by Elizabeth Acevedo




• “The Unsettled” by Ayana Mathis




• “Moonrise Over New Jessup” by Jamila Minnicks

Caller’s picks

• “Winter’s Song: A Hymn to the North” by TD Mischke




• “Foster” by Claire Keegan




• “West with Giraffes: A Novel” by Lynda Rutledge




• “Angry Water” by Allen Theisen




• “The Seed Keeper” by Diane Wilson




• “The Comfort of Crows” by Margaret Renkl




• “Lessons in Chemistry” by Bonnie Garmus




• “The Jungle Book: by Rudyard Kipling




• “Mr. Texas: A Novel” by Lawrence Wright




• “Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America” by Heather Cox Richardson




• “The Measure” by Nikki Erlick




• “A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan’s Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them” by Timothy Egan




• “Whiskey When We’re Dry: A Novel” by John Larison




• “Chenneville” by Paulette Jiles

Subscribe to Big Books and Bold Ideas with Kerri MilleronApple Podcasts,Google Podcasts,RSSor anywhere you get your podcasts.

Subscribe to the Thread newsletterfor the latest book and author news and must-read recommendations.

Can you imagine a day when families visit the moon for summer vacation? When travel to see Saturn’s rings up close is a romantic getaway? When humans living on Mars schedule tours of Olympus Mons — a volcano roughly the size of Arizona?

The day is coming. But since it’s not possible quite yet, the would-be space traveler can do the next best thing: Take the scenic route through the galaxy with astronomer and science communicator Philip Plait in his new book, “Under Alien Skies.”

Written as a lively adventure through the cosmos, Plait uses both the latest scientific research and a lively imagination to transport readers to ten of the most astonishing sights space has to offer.

This week on Big Books and Bold Ideas, Plait joined host Kerri Miller to give listeners a personal tour through the galaxy.

Guest:

• Philip Plait is an astronomer, a self-proclaimed sci-fi dork and all-around science enthusiast. His latest book is “Under Alien Skies: A Sightseer's Guide to the Universe.” He also writes the Bad Astronomy newsletter.

Subscribe to the MPR News with Kerri Miller podcastonApple Podcasts,Google Podcasts,RSSor anywhere you get your podcasts.

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The season finale of Talking Volumes brought author and columnist Margaret Renkl to Minnesota, hours after the first snow carpeted our Northern landscape.

She declared it “magical” — a theme familiar to those who’ve read her New York Times columns or her new book, “The Comfort of Crows.”

In it, the self-described backyard naturalist details what she saw in her Tennessee half-acre backyard over the course of 52 weeks. She laughs at the bumblebees and fusses over foxes. She laments the absence of birds and butterflies that used to be proliferate. But she also refuses to give in to despair.

For those of us paying attention, she told MPR host Kerri Miller, it would be “easy for the grief to take over.”

“But what a waste it would be if we did that,” she added. “If it’s true, that we’re going to lose all the songbirds — at least the migratory ones — how much more are we obliged to notice them and treasure them while we have them?”

Don’t miss this warm and candid conversation about the gift of nature, the solace of observation and the gospel Renkl finds in her own backyard. Musical guest The Dollys rounded out the evening.

Talking Volumes: Margaret Renkl, "The Comfort of Crows"

Guest:

• Margaret Renkl is an award-winning author and a New York Times columnist. Her latest book is “The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year.”

Use the audio player or video player above to listen to the conversation.

Don’t miss a conversation! Subscribe to the MPR News with Kerri Miller podcastonApple Podcasts,Google PodcastsorRSS.

Love books?Subscribe to the Thread newsletterfor the latest book and author news and must-read recommendations.

On July 7, 2016, a Black gunman ambushed Dallas police officers working a peaceful protest, shooting 14 and killing five.

The trauma surgeon who worked to save many of those officers — Dr. Brian H. Williams — made headlines when he spoke at a press conference after the incident. In an emotional moment, he confessed his complicated feelings as a Black man in America to the mix of race, policing and guns.

“I want the Dallas P.D. to also see me, a Black man, and understand that I support you, I will defend you, and I will care for you,” he said.

“But that doesn't mean that I do not fear you,” he added. “That doesn’t mean that if you approach me I will not immediately have a visceral reaction and start worrying for my personal safety.”

It was that moment that catapulted Dr. Williams into the national spotlight and pushed him to offer a diagnosis on a system that is failing almost everyone.

This week on Big Books and Bold Ideas, Dr. Williams talks with MPR News host Kerri Miller about that fateful day in Dallas. They also talk about what led him to medicine in the first place, the systemic racism he witnessed in the health care field and why he still believes healing is possible.

Guest:

• Dr. Brian H. Williams is a trauma surgeon, an Air Force Academy alumnus and a former congressional health policy advisor. His new book is “The Bodies Keep Coming: Dispatches from a Black Trauma Surgeon on Racism, Violence, and How We Heal.”

Subscribe to the MPR News with Kerri Miller podcastonApple Podcasts,Google Podcasts,RSSor anywhere you get your podcasts.

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Viet Thanh Nguyen has a critical mind.

He’s critic of populist politics. He’s a critic of history. He’s a critic of the country where he was born, Vietnam, and he’s a critic of the country he calls home, the United States. He’s even a critic of his own memories.

But Nguyen says his captious lens isn’t meant to blister. It’s simply meant to reveal truth. And if you write truthfully, you will likely offend.

Talking Volumes with Viet Thanh Nguyen

Nguyen joined host Kerri Miller on stage at the Fitzgerald Theater for the third conversation in the 2023 Talking Volumes season. Their discussion was candid and eloquent, poignant and funny, as they talked and shared photos from Nguyen’s new memoir, “A Man of Two Faces.”

Photos Shared at Talking Volumes

They were joined by musician D’Lourdes, who sang two songs off their new EP, “softer, for now.”

Guest:

• Viet Thanh Nguyenwon the Pulitzer Prize in 2016 for his novel, “The Sympathizer.” His new book, “A Man of Two Faces” is an unconventional memoir that combines his own story of being a Vietnamese refugee with larger themes of colonization, war and perceptions about America.

Use the audio player or video player above to listen to the conversation.

Don’t miss a conversation! Subscribe to the MPR News with Kerri Miller podcastonApple Podcasts,Google PodcastsorRSS.

Love books?Subscribe to the Thread newsletterfor the latest book and author news and must-read recommendations.