Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller

By Minnesota Public Radio

Where Readers Meet Writers. Conversations on books and ideas, Fridays at 11 a.m.... more

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Best of Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller

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Number 1: Paul Yoon's novel 'Etna' is told from a dog's point of view, thanks to Oscar
There’s a before and an after to Paul Yoon’s writing life, and at the center is Oscar — a floppy, gentle, food-loving, 70-pound yellow Lab. Yoon didn’t grow up with dogs, so it was really his wife — fellow writer Laura van den Berg — who insisted on the addition. She might have known what would happen to their buttoned-up writing life when a puppy entered it. Paul didn’t. But he quickly fell in love with this disruptive and magical creature. It gave him a new way of looking at the world. His sixth novel is the result of that transformation. “Etna” is about a combat dog searching for home after war ravages his unnamed country — and the whole story is told from the dog’s point of view. It’s something Yoon wouldn’t have attempted outside of Oscar. “Part of it was imagining what Oscar might sound like,” Yoon tells Kerri Miller on this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas. ”I imagine him to be a dignified and empathetic creature. To me, he’s the best — so it was trying to capture what I thought were his best qualities and bring that onto the page.” Guest: Paul Yoon is a writer and a professor who lives in Hudson, New York, with his wife and their dog, Oscar. His new novel is “Etna.” 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.
August 21, 202651min
Number 2: In search of true wilderness with Cal Flyn
Minnesotans have long debated the meaning of “Up North.” Is it everything north of Duluth, or north of Mille Lacs? Are pine trees and lakes a prerequisite? What about loons? Or is it more of a perception — a place defined not so much by location but by mindset? Sigurd Olson wrote his beloved book, “The Singing Wilderness,” to describe the beauty and wildness he saw in what came to be known as The Boundary Waters Canoe Area. He wrote: “The singing wilderness has to do with the calling of loons, with northern lights, and the great silences of land lying northwest of Lake Superior. It is concerned with the simple joys, the timelessness and perspective found in a way of life which is close to the past.” Cal Flyn has never been to the Boundary Waters, but she resonates with Olson’s definition. A writer based in the isles off the coast of Scotland, Flyn climbed mountains, plunged into forests and helicoptered to volcanoes for her new book, “The Savage Landscape.” But more than the nature itself, she’s intrigued by how we recognize and preserve these wild places. “There is no obvious visual marker that announces one’s arrival in a wilderness,” she writes, “and thus, the search never truly ends.” Flyn joins Kerri Miller on this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas to talk about what we mean when we say wilderness and why that definition matters. Guest: Cal Flyn is a Scottish journalist and writer. Her new book is “The Savage Landscape: How We Made the Wilderness.” 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.
August 14, 202650min
Number 3: Maggie O'Farrell pulls from the mythology of her own family for 'Land'
Between death and emigration, Ireland lost almost a quarter of its population in the mid 1800s to the Great Hunger. Entire villages starved to death after potato blight wiped out the island’s primary subsistence crop, and British overseers did little to help. “Hamnet” author Maggie O’Farrell’s ancestors lived that history and stayed in Ireland. According to family lore, her great-great-grandfather was a map-maker who helped the British redraw maps of the island after the famine altered the land. Inspired by that story, O’Farrell decided her next novel would be centered on her homeland of Ireland and the tragic era that marked both the place and her people. “I think it’s hard for us,” she tells Kerri Miller on this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas. “These days, we can look at the statistics [of death and people leaving]. But if you zero down to one or two people’s tiny little lives, you see the enormity of tragedy behind it.” O’Farrell’s new novel, “Land,” tells the story of two such people, Tomás and his wife, Phina, who survive the Great Hunger and have four children. It’s a universal story told through the specifics of one family and one piece of land. She talks about it — and her work on the Oscar-winning adaptation of her novel, “Hamnet,” — on this weeks Big Books and Bold Ideas. Guest: Maggie O’Farrell is an author and screenwriter. Her new novel is “Land.” Subscribe to the Thread newsletter for the latest book and author news and must-read recommendations. Subscribe to Big Books and Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS or anywhere you get your podcasts.
June 19, 202650min
Number 4: Kate DiCamillo marvels at 25 years of 'Because of Winn-Dixie'
Twenty-five years ago this fall, a generation of readers met 10-year-old India Opal Buloni and her loveable, scruffy dog, Winn-Dixie — so named because Opal found the canine while he was causing chaos in the produce aisle of the local grocery store. Winn-Dixie transformed Opal’s life, as only a dog can do. And their story changed those who read it, as only a book can do. “Because of Winn-Dixie” received a Newbery Honor the year it was published — a significant award for a debut children’s book. Since then, it has been translated into almost 30 language and been made into a major motion picture. It also catapulted Minneapolis author Kate DiCamillo into the national spotlight and launched her remarkable career. To celebrate the 25th anniversary of this modern classic, DiCamillo joined Big Books and Bold Ideas host Kerri Miller in the studio to reflect on what “Because of Winn-Dixie” meant to her. Between bouts of laughter and teasing, DiCamillo and Miller talked about the transformative experience of writing for children, which DiCamillo believes makes her a better, more hopeful person. “I didn't know how much that hope was a part of me until I started to write books for children,” she tells Miller. “So that's part of how ‘Winn-Dixie’ changed the whole of my life — not just by letting me become a writer, but by letting me see myself a little bit better.”
October 10, 202542min
Number 5: Minnesota's supper clubs set the table for a delicious family drama
J. Ryan Stradal knows supper club culture. Growing up in Hastings, Minn., his family milestones were marked by dressing up, sitting in a leather booth at the Wiederholt's Supper Club, picking at a relish tray and watching the grown-ups enjoy a brandy Old Fashioned. He even worked at a supper club across the river, in Prescott, Wisc., where he went behind the double-swinging doors and had his views about restaurant work forever changed. So it is with a deep sense of fondness, with a side of realism, that his latest novel centers around a supper club in the fictitious northern Minnesota town of Bear Jaw. Main character Mariel has inherited the Lakeside Club from her grandparents and is wrestling with its future — and her own. Meanwhile, her husband stands to take on his own family’s restaurant legacy, a growing chain of family diners. Which future will they pursue? And will old family wounds deepen in the process, or be healed? This week on Big Books and Bold Ideas, Stradal joined host Kerri Miller in the studio to trade stories about their own experiences with the supper club scene. They also talked about the purpose and value of nostalgia and how Stradal works to balance sentimentality with reality in his writing. Guest: J. Ryan Stradal is a native Minnesotan and a New York Times bestselling author. His latest novel is “Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club.” Use the audio player above to listen to the podcast version of the conversation. Subscribe to the MPR News with Kerri Miller podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or RSS. Subscribe to the Thread newsletter for the latest book and author news and must-read recommendations.
August 04, 202352min