Lily Chen is not endowed with good fortune — despite the fact that her scientist mother managed to grow a backyard of four-leaf clovers. She doesn’t win raffles or lotteries. She scrapes out a meager living as an unpaid intern with the hopes that it might give her a shot at an entry-level gig.

In short: Not lucky.

But then a chance encounter upends her life and changes her idea of what fortune really is.

Rachel Khong’s new book, “Real Americans,” is already a New York Times bestseller and one of the hottest novels of the summer. She joins MPR News host Kerri Miller on this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas to talk about teasing out the truth between luck and choice, soul mates and chance.

The Civil War is remembered for its sweeping battles: Gettysburg, Atlanta, Antietam. Less known are the small troops of men, enlisted by both sides, to fight far from the battlefields.

These ruthless soldiers relied on stealth to sneak behind enemy lines — often wearing their opponent’s uniform — and destroyed supply lines, assassinated military officials and gathered critical information.

Today, we know this kind of warfare as shadow ops — which is a specialty of military historian Patrick K. O’Donnell. A roadside marker he happened to see in rural Virginia ignited years of research into the Civil War era special forces who were tasked by President Lincoln to undertake spy operations and secrete missions against Confederate units.

This week, he joined MPR News host Kerri Miller on Big Books and Bold ideas to talk about his new book, “The Unvanquished,” which masterfully tells the story of this forgotten chapter of history.

Taiyon Coleman has been writing since she was a child. At age 8, she announced to her family that a novel was in the works.

Today, she’s a published author and a professor of literature at St. Catherine University. But the road from there to here wasn’t as straight-forward as you might think.

Coleman joins host Kerri Miller on Big Books and Bold Ideas this week to talk about what happened in the in-between. Some of it is detailed in her new collection of personal essays, “Traveling without Moving: Essays from a Black Woman Trying to Survive in America.”

But the deeper story is held in Coleman’s body, in her voice, in her strength. Don’t miss this vulnerable and moving conversation about mothers and ancestors, writing and truth-telling and the power of being a teacher.

Guest:

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• Taiyon J. Coleman is a poet, a author and a literature professor at St. Paul’s St. Catherine University. Her new book is “Traveling without Moving.”

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