Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller

When Ruby Ishimaru and her family are sent away from Hawaii to a mainland internment camp in 1942, Ruby packs her treasures — photographs, seashells and the books of Laura Ingalls Wilder. She finds comfort in Laura’s adventures even as she and her family are thrust into the frightening unknown.

On the other side of the world, the unknown is also baring down on Japan, where young Koji Matsuo watches the country rally for war from his home in Hiroshima.

When Ruby and Koji eventually meet in California, their love story begins. But can their traumas be overcome?

It’s a question familiar to author Kent Matsumoto, who together with his wife, Constance, mined his own family history to tell the stories of Ruby and Koji. Their new novel, “Of White Ashes,” tells a fictionalized version of his parents experiences in World War II. Destined to become a classic in the classroom, it artfully depicts the frustration of American citizens being incarcerated by their own country and the horrors of the atomic bomb.

MPR News host Kerri Miller was joined by the Matsumotos on this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas, to talk about how they did their research, their realizations and their hopes for “Of White Ashes.”

Guests:

• Constance and Kent Matsumoto’s novel is “Of White Ashes.”

Use the audio player above to listen to the podcast version of the conversation.

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“Cancer took my mother. But religion would take my life.”

So writes journalist Rachel Louise Snyder in her new memoir, “Women We Buried, Women We Burned.”

It recounts with brutal honesty how the death of her mother upended her previously peaceful world, launching her father into a new marriage within the confines of a strict, fundamentalist Christianity. Violence and rage became her new norm, until she was kicked out at age 16 for refusing the obey the many rules her father imposed.

But that dark moment turned out to be a gift. Snyder found support in unlikely places and forged a new path, one where light and dark coexist and where forgiveness is not synonymous with exoneration.

This week, on Big Books and Bold Ideas, Snyder joins MPR host Kerri Miller to talk about her journeys. They discuss how the prosperity gospel dismantles human agency, how her work investigating violence led her to think about her own, and how travel can heal past wounds and open up new vistas.

Guest:

• Rachel Louise Snyder is a journalist and a professor of creative writing and journalism at American University. Her memoir is “Women We Buried, Women We Burned.”

Use the audio player above to listen to the podcast version of the conversation.

Subscribe to the MPR News with Kerri Miller podcastonApple Podcasts,Google PodcastsorRSS.

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

“Cancer took my mother. But religion would take my life.”

So writes journalist Rachel Louise Snyder in her new memoir, “Women We Buried, Women We Burned.”

It recounts with brutal honesty how the death of her mother upended her previously peaceful world, launching her father into a new marriage within the confines of a strict, fundamentalist Christianity. Violence and rage became her new norm, until she was kicked out at age 16 for refusing the obey the many rules her father imposed.

But that dark moment turned out to be a gift. Snyder found support in unlikely places and forged a new path, one where light and dark coexist and where forgiveness is not synonymous with exoneration.

This week, on Big Books and Bold Ideas, Snyder joins MPR host Kerri Miller to talk about her journeys. They discuss how the prosperity gospel dismantles human agency, how her work investigating violence led her to think about her own, and how travel can heal past wounds and open up new vistas.

Guest:

• Rachel Louise Snyder is a journalist and a professor of creative writing and journalism at American University. Her memoir is “Women We Buried, Women We Burned.”

Use the audio player above to listen to the podcast version of the conversation.

Subscribe to the MPR News with Kerri Miller podcastonApple Podcasts,Google PodcastsorRSS.

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

The latest book from journalist and bestselling authorDavid Granndetails the true story of a 1741 shipwreck that he believes has "surprising resonance … with our own contemporary, turbulent times.”

When a squadron of ships left England in the fall of 1740, with secret hopes of capturing a Spanish galleon filled with gold, they had little idea what might befall them. They were overloaded with men, many who were old and infirmed. They were equipped with rudimentary navigation tools. And none of them had ever sailed around Cape Horn, the southernmost tip of South America, which we now know is one of the most treacherous seas on the planet.

The disastrous voyage ended with a shipwreck off the coast of Patagonia. But the story only deepens there. The cadre of men who survived faced starvation, murder and mutiny while trying to find a way home. And once they get there, the competing stories of what really happened on the island transfixed a nation.

As he did in his previous best sellers, “Killers of the Flower Moon” and “The Lost City of Z,” Grann recounts this true story with vivid detail. On this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas, he told host Kerri Miller that, far from being just a swashbuckling tale, the story of The Wager echoes themes we grapple with today, like the dangers of imperialism and the war over truth.

Guest:

• David Grann is a New York Times bestselling author and an award-winning staff writer at The New Yorker magazine. His latest book is “The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Murder and Mutiny.”

Use the audio player above to listen to the conversation.

Subscribe to the MPR News with Kerri Miller podcastonApple Podcasts,Google PodcastsorRSS.

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

The latest book from journalist and bestselling authorDavid Granndetails the true story of a 1741 shipwreck that he believes has "surprising resonance … with our own contemporary, turbulent times.”

When a squadron of ships left England in the fall of 1740, with secret hopes of capturing a Spanish galleon filled with gold, they had little idea what might befall them. They were overloaded with men, many who were old and infirmed. They were equipped with rudimentary navigation tools. And none of them had ever sailed around Cape Horn, the southernmost tip of South America, which we now know is one of the most treacherous seas on the planet.

The disastrous voyage ended with a shipwreck off the coast of Patagonia. But the story only deepens there. The cadre of men who survived faced starvation, murder and mutiny while trying to find a way home. And once they get there, the competing stories of what really happened on the island transfixed a nation.

As he did in his previous best sellers, “Killers of the Flower Moon” and “The Lost City of Z,” Grann recounts this true story with vivid detail. On this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas, he told host Kerri Miller that, far from being just a swashbuckling tale, the story of The Wager echoes themes we grapple with today, like the dangers of imperialism and the war over truth.

Guest:

• David Grann is a New York Times bestselling author and an award-winning staff writer at The New Yorker magazine. His latest book is “The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Murder and Mutiny.”

Use the audio player above to listen to the conversation.

Subscribe to the MPR News with Kerri Miller podcastonApple Podcasts,Google PodcastsorRSS.

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

Editor’s note: This program was originally preempted by breaking news coverage. The post has been updated to reflect the new broadcast date.

Jeannette Wells’ 2009 memoir “The Glass Castle” has been a New York Times bestseller for more than eight years. The movie adaptation starring Brie Larson, Woody Harrelson and Naomi Watts also won awards.

Her much-anticipated new book, “Hang the Moon,” is worth the wait. Set in 1920s rural Virginia, it centers on young Sallie Kincaid whose daddy runs the county where they live. Sallie wants to go into the family business, which includes running moonshine. But is she ready to fight through the conflict that awaits her?

This week, on Big Books and Bold Ideas, Wells joined MPR News host Kerri Miller to talk about the relative morality of Prohibition in America.

“In my neck of the woods, rural Virginia, whiskey making had long been a tradition,” says Wells. ”What Prohibition did was turn this money-making operation, that for many was the only cash crop they had, into something illegal. It turned law-abiding folk into outlaws.”

Wells also talked with Miller about how the era mirrors the tumultuousness of America today.

Guest:

• Jeannette Walls is the author of “The Glass Castle” and “The Silver Star.” She lives in rural Virginia with her husband, writer John Taylor.

Use the audio player above to listen to the conversation.

Subscribe to the MPR News with Kerri Miller podcastonApple Podcasts,Google PodcastsorRSS.

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

Jeannette Wells’ 2009 memoir “The Glass Castle” has been a New York Times bestseller for more than eight years. The movie adaptation starring Brie Larson, Woody Harrelson and Naomi Watts also won awards.

Her much-anticipated new book, “Hang the Moon,” is worth the wait. Set in 1920s rural Virginia, it centers on young Sallie Kincaid whose daddy runs the county where they live. Sallie wants to go into the family business, which includes running moonshine. But is she ready to fight through the conflict that awaits her?

This week, on Big Books and Bold Ideas, Wells joins MPR News host Kerri Miller to talk about the relative morality of Prohibition in America.

“In my neck of the woods, rural Virginia, whiskey making had long been a tradition,” says Wells. ”What Prohibition did was turn this money-making operation, that for many was the only cash crop they had, into something illegal. It turned law-abiding folk into outlaws.”

Wells also talks with Miller about how the era mirrors the tumultuousness of America today.

Guest:

• Jeannette Walls is the author of “The Glass Castle” and “The Silver Star.” She lives in rural Virginia with her husband, writer John Taylor.

Use the audio player above to listen to the conversation.

Subscribe to the MPR News with Kerri Miller podcastonApple Podcasts,Google PodcastsorRSS.

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

Joe Milan Jr.’s debut novel, “The All-American,” is about immigration — but it’s not a story about what it means to leave a foreign land and start over in America. Instead, it’s about what it means to leave America, unwillingly, and start over in a foreign land.

Milan’s protagonist, 17-year-old Bucky Yi, knows nothing about his birth country of South Korea. Raised in rural Washington, he has only one goal — to become a college football player.

But when he tangles with local law enforcement, and his adoptive mom can’t produce proof of U.S. citizenship, Bucky is deported to a country where he knows no one and can’t speak the language.

He has to tap into his inner running back to deal with situations both extreme and familiar to any young person on the cusp of adulthood. Is he Korean, or American? Is he Bucky, or Beyonghak? Is he a boy, or a man? Does he want to go home? Or has he made a new home?

This Friday, on Big Books and Bold Ideas, Milan joined MPR News host Kerri Miller to talk about his book, his own identity conundrum, what it means to embody American values, and how football ties it all together.

Guest:

• Joe Milan Jr. is a second-generation Korean American and an assistant professor of creative writing at Waldorf University. “The All-American” is his first novel.

Use the audio player above to listen to the conversation.

Subscribe to the MPR News with Kerri Miller podcastonApple Podcasts,Google PodcastsorRSS.

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

Joe Milan Jr.’s debut novel, “The All-American,” is about immigration — but it’s not a story about what it means to leave a foreign land and start over in America. Instead, it’s about what it means to leave America, unwillingly, and start over in a foreign land.

Milan’s protagonist, 17-year-old Bucky Yi, knows nothing about his birth country of South Korea. Raised in rural Washington, he has only one goal — to become a college football player.

But when he tangles with local law enforcement, and his adoptive mom can’t produce proof of U.S. citizenship, Bucky is deported to a country where he knows no one and can’t speak the language.

He has to tap into his inner running back to deal with situations both extreme and familiar to any young person on the cusp of adulthood. Is he Korean, or American? Is he Bucky, or Beyonghak? Is he a boy, or a man? Does he want to go home? Or has he made a new home?

This Friday, on Big Books and Bold Ideas, Milan joined MPR News host Kerri Miller to talk about his book, his own identity conundrum, what it means to embody American values, and how football ties it all together.

Guest:

• Joe Milan Jr. is a second-generation Korean American and an assistant professor of creative writing at Waldorf University. “The All-American” is his first novel.

Use the audio player above to listen to the conversation.

Subscribe to the MPR News with Kerri Miller podcastonApple Podcasts,Google PodcastsorRSS.

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

Minnesota author William Kent Krueger has written 19 books that star his primary protagonist, private investigator Cork O’Connor.

But just as central to his writing is the landscape of Northern Minnesota. It’s more than a setting. It’s a character.

“I write profoundly out of a sense of place,” Krueger told MPR News host Kerri Miller at a special spring Talking Volumes earlier this month. “When I used to teach writing, I taught place as character. Place is one of the most important and versatile characters in any story.”

Don’t miss this warm and revealing conversation between Miller on Krueger, recorded on stage at The College of St. Scholastica in Duluth.

They talk about the development of O’Connor as an Irish-Ojibwe man, how Anishinaabe mythology shaped Krueger’s writing and why he believes mysteries should not be underestimated as classic literature. Krueger also shares the jaw-dropping prologue for his next stand-alone novel, “The River We Remember,” which comes out later this year.

Miller and Krueger were joined on stage by musical guests Clancy Ward and Kyle Orla.

Guest:

• William Kent Kruegeris a prolific author, known best for his Cork O’Connor mysteries, which are set in Northern Minnesota. His next novel, “The River We Remember,” publishes in September 2023.

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

Subscribe to the MPR News with Kerri Miller podcastonApple Podcasts,Google PodcastsorRSS.

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