Big Books and Bold Ideas host Kerri Miller interviews a lot of authors over the course of a year. But some conversations stand out for being especially fascinating, delightfully fun or unexpectedly candid.

So this week and next, Miller and producer Kelly Gordon share their favorite, most surprising shows from the last 12 months.

This week’s conversations include authors:

• Sarah Hoover
• Charles Bock
• Fabienne Josaphat

Stay tuned for the final two favorites of 2025 — and a bonus surprise — next week.

Dictionary.com’s word of the year isn’t really a word — it’s a number that went viral on TikTok. The selection caused a ruckus among lexicographers. But editors argued that social media is a major force in creating new words these days, and the whole point of choosing a word of the year is to “reveal the stories we tell about ourselves and how we've changed.”

It’s no surprise to author Stefan Fatsis, who chronicles the rise of the modern dictionary in his new book, “Unabridged: The Thrill of and Threat to the Modern Dictionary.” He joined Kerri Miller on this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas to nerd out over words and to talk about the power the humble dictionary has to shape our lives.

“Language bubbles up from below,” Fatsis says. “For at least the last 60 years, the dictionary’s function is to be descriptive, to reflect back on culture the way we humans use language — as opposed to prescriptive, the belief for many generations, which was that dictionaries should tell people how to use language.”

Fatsis also talks about his time being embedded as a lexicographer-in-training at America’s most famous dictionary publisher, Merriam-Webster, and how the internet and AI threaten this most foundational of books.

Guest:

• Stefan Fatsis is a journalist and the author of many books. He’s also responsible for defining 15 words in Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary, including a Kerri Miller favorite — sheeple. His new book is “Unabridged: The Thrill of and Threat to the Modern Dictionary.”

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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. “All of this endless white tricks the eye.”

What is hidden and what is revealed is the true terror of her new novel, “The Unveiling.” Quan labels it literary horror — equal parts “Lord of the Flies” and “Get Out.” She discusses her wildly original and downright scary new book with host Kerri Miller on this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas.

Guest:

• Quan Barry is an English professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and the author of many books, including “When I’m Gone, Look for Me in the East” (featured on Big Books and Bold Ideas in 2022) and “We Ride Upon Sticks.” Her new novel is “The Unveiling.”

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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 the most. Rocky is devoted to her family, almost compulsively. She’s also super annoyed with them, thanks to the dark cloud of perimenopause that hangs over her every day. But that doesn’t stop her from gushing over them, from worrying about them, or from making countless hysterical observations about the achingly beautiful gift of life.

We get to revisit Rocky in Newman’s new novel, “Wreck,” along with the rest of the crew (minus one). Like “Sandwich,” the title does double duty. “Wreck” is set two years after “Sandwich.” Rocky is navigating the chaos of adult children who move back home while also caring for her father, who temporarily resides under her roof. A growing awareness of mortality causes her to fixate on a tragic accident that happens nearby, while an unexplained rash tries to take over her body.

Newman brings her own take on her beloved characters to Big Books and Bold Ideas this week. She and host Kerri Miller talk about Rocky’s new penchant for weepiness, the payment that comes due in our bodies as we age and how to recognize and appreciate a golden time when you’re in it.

Guest:

• Catherine Newman is the author of many books, including “We All Want Impossible Things” and “Sandwich.” Her new novel is “Wreck.”

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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 life.

Along the way, Lucia retraces her path to becoming a DJ, how she kicked a drug addiction cold turkey and why she felt completely forsaken by law enforcement, friends and colleagues during the years she was being stalked.

This week, Lucia’s familiar voice returns to MPR’s airwaves when she joins Kerri Miller on Big Books and Bold Ideas. The self-described “cilantro of radio” shares memories, stories and frustrations from her memoir. Ultimately, she shares herself — one of the things she’s best at doing.

Guest:

• Mary Lucia is a broadcast media personality, writer, actor and voiceover artist. She was a DJ at The Current from 2005 to 2022. Currently, she’s program adviser for Radio K, the University of Minnesota’s student-run radio station. 

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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.

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 — even if she’d rather stand outside and look at them through the window, and the unique bond in female friendships.

MPR News reporter Catharine Richert stepped into the host chair for this Talking Volumes, and talked with Baer about bad childhood poetry, Amish romance novels, the power of getting older and how Baer’s latest poetry collection is both personal and resoundingly universal.

Musicians Faith Boblett and Seth Duin closed out the evening with their own kind of poetry.

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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 Braithwaite back to the MPR airwaves for a conversation about curses and karma. Can a curse can be eluded, or does it become a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy? What if ancestors refuse to acknowledge a curse? Would it disappear? Or is a curse of kind of generational trauma, passed down from family to family until someone steps into the gap and breaks it?

Guest:

• Oyinkan Braithwaite is the author of the best-selling, “My Sister, The Serial Killer.” Her new novel is “Cursed Daughters.”

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“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 Jackson, who believed captured Nazi leadership — including Göring — should stand trial at Nuremberg. He wanted the men to answer publicly for their crimes.

But before they can have their day in court, each one will be examined by a military psychiatrist, to determine if they are mentally fit. The psychiatrist assigned to Göring, the ambitious Robert Kelley, has a secondary intent. He wants to find out what linked the defendants. Did they have a common psychiatric disorder that would explain their heinous crimes? Could their evil be diagnosed, and if so, be prevented from infecting future generations?

“Nuremberg,” which opens nationwide this weekend, stars Russell Crowe as Göring and Rami Malek as Kelley. The film is based on Minneapolis writer Jack el-Hai’s 2011 book, “The Nazi and the Psychiatrist.”

To mark the release of “Nuremburg,” Kerri Miller hosted el-Hai at MPR’s St. Paul studios to talk about the book and the movie adaptation. They also discuss the central question that animates both: If the potential for evil lurks inside all of us, how do we stop it?

Guest:

• Jack el-Hai is the author of many books, including “The Nazi and the Psychiatrist.” He lives and writes in Minneapolis.

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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 to his editor?

They discussed all that and more — including his new novel, “The Widow,” which is actually more mystery than thriller, and how his first as a small-town lawyer in Mississippi led him to become an author. They also delved into how writing about the criminal justice system in America transformed the way he thought about justice.

Music was provided by Molly Maher, who brought her blend of Americana and the blues to the Fitz, and even debuted a song inspired by “The Widow.”

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 ancient bodies be poked and prodded for information? Should the land where they have laid for centuries be explored or left undisturbed? And what of the bog itself, with its intricate biosystems of peat and sphagnum moss? Is it, in itself, a living thing that deserves to be heard?

In “Bog Queen,” North gently probes those questions and more. She joins Kerri Miller on this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas to talk about what ancient wisdom offers our contemporary world.

Guest:

• Anna North’s previous novels include “Outlawed” and “America Pacifica.” Her new novel is “Bog Queen.”

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