It takes courage to reimagine a classic.

Xiaolu Guo was drawn to Herman Melville’s “Moby-Dick,” from the first time she read it in her native Chinese. The writing was lyrical — hard to translate — and the descriptions of sailing were dense. But the symbolism of the great white whale and the sea-faring captain obsessed with revenge captivated her.

Her new novel is a retelling of this classic with a young girl at its center. Protagonist Ishmaelle goes to sea, disguised as a boy, in a desperate grasp for freedom. She wants to leave poverty, gender norms and religious traditions behind. When she ends up on a whaling ship, captained by a free Black man named Seneca, she meets a swash-buckling crew of people who broaden her world — and ours.

Guo joins host Kerri Miller this week to talk about her reimagined “Moby-Dick” which probes gender, race, humanity’s connection to animals and the nature of belonging.

Guest:

• Xiaolu Guo is the author of “Radical” and “Nine Continents.” Her new novel is “Call Me Ishmaelle.”

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.

“You have a good life,” her aunt said. “You don’t want to ruin it with the past.”

Those words were deeply unsettling to journalist Christine Kuehn. She always suspected there was more to her paternal family history. Her father was kind but evasive, and her aunt flat out refused to discuss it. But no one would talk.

Then she got a letter from a screenwriter who asked if her family could be the same Kuehns who spied on Pearl Harbor for the Nazis and shared intel with the Japanese. When she confronted her father, he denied everything. But within an hour, he called back, sobbing, and confessed.

So began Kuehn’s quest to uncover the truth. It took her and her husband Mark decades to sort through FBI files, letters, historical records and family journals — and even longer for her to absorb and process the fact that her grandparents and aunt were accomplished Nazi spies, largely responsible for the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Her new book, “Family of Spies,” tells her family’s shocking history. Turns out, at age 19, Kuehn’s aunt Ruth had an affair with Nazi leader Joseph Goebbels. When he learned she was half Jewish, he sent the family to Hawaii — the better to preserve his purity — with a mandate that they spy on the Americans for the Japanese. Kuehn’s family obliged and changed the course of history.

This week on Big Books and Bold Ideas, Kuehn talks with Kerri Miller about the shame of discovering her family’s history and what helped her move beyond it.

Guest:

• Christine Kuehn is a journalist and writer who lives outside of Baltimore, Maryland. Her book is “Family of Spies.”

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.

When an aspiring novelist moves into an apartment above a famous author, the younger writer thinks it’s a sign that literary stardom is right around the corner.

He’s partly right. But his luck is about to turn in ways he can’t expect.

Matthew Pearl, himself an award-winning author, writes what he knows in his new novel, “The Award” — which is why the book swerves into some wildly dark places. He returns to Big Books and Bold Ideas this week to talk with Kerri Miller about the absurdity of the publishing industry today (without naming names, of course) and the inspiration behind “The Award.”

When MPR News host Kerri Miller travels to small towns around Minnesota for her Rural Voice series, she hears over and over again about the crisis of loneliness and social isolation. People say that even in communities where they know everyone, it’s easy to feel adrift.

It’s no surprise to neuroscientist Ben Rein, who studies the inner workings of the human brain. He writes in his new book that our brains have been shaped for social contact, both inside and out. When we don’t get enough social interaction, our bodies are stressed. And in our post-COVID, screen-obsessed world, a good chunk of the population is suffering from too much alone time.

Rein joins Miller on this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas to talk about why friendships are as important to health as how often you exercise and how much you sleep, and why online relationships aren’t enough for a brain that’s evolved to expect face-to-face.

Only one day after Jen Hatmaker discovered her husband of 26 years was having an affair, her intuition lead her to dissolution, not restoration.

In an early chapter of hew new memoir, Hatmaker writes: “What instinct drove me to an attorney instead of back to a marriage therapist? I was acting purely on intuition — which I only figured out later is the most trustworthy character in the play.”

Learning to listen to and trust her “inner knowing” is just one powerful lesson Hatmaker learned in the crucible. In “Awake,” she also talks about her split from the evangelical Christian church that first gave her a platform, her realigned views on sexuality and gender norms and how she was forced to learn to grieve.

At it’s core, “Awake” is a midlife memoir about how to reinvent and reconnect to yourself when the world burns down around you.

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.

Last week, we unveiled three of Miller’s top five favorites from 2025. This week, the final two — plus one surprise.

• 
  
  MPR News staff picks The 43 best books MPR News staff read in 2025
  
  


• 
  
  From NPR Hunker down with these 13 mysteries and thrillers from 2025
  
  


• 
  
  From U.S. libraries Genre fiction and female authors top most-borrowed lists in 2025
  
  

If you want to hear the full episodes, you can find them here:

• Misty Copeland at Talking Volumes
• Catherine Newman
• Kate DiCamillo

Big Books and Bold Ideas is produced by Kelly Gordon and engineered by Cliff Bentley. Here’s to more great books and more fascinating interviews in 2026.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.”

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.

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.”

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.