The Bookmonger

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As a journalist, Jay Nordlinger covers a lot of ground: people, human rights, language, music, golf and more. His best articles and essays from the last decade now appear on the pages of Digging In: Further Collected Writings of Jay Nordlinger.

In a 10-minute conversation with The Bookmonger, Nordlinger describes how he comes up with story ideas, the importance of writing about people rather than concepts, and how William F. Buckley Jr. influenced him.

Join the conversation and comment on this podcast episode: https://ricochet.com/podcast/digging-collected-writings-jay-nordlinger/.

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Subscribe to The Bookmonger with John J. Miller in iTunes (and leave a 5-star review, please!), or by RSS feed. For all our podcasts in one place, subscribe to the Ricochet Audio Network Superfeed in iTunes or by RSS feed.

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Barry Sadler recorded one of the biggest pop-song smash hits in American history — and Marc Leepson tells his fascinating story in Ballad of the Green Beret: The Life and Wars of Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler from the Vietnam War and Pop Stardom to Murder and an Unsolved, Violent Death.

In a 10-minute conversation with The Bookmonger, Leepson describes how and why Sadler’s song “The Ballad of the Green Berets” struck a nerve in 1966, what happened to Sadler in the aftermath of his huge success, and whether Sadler ever had second thoughts about the Vietnam War.

Join the conversation and comment on this podcast episode: https://ricochet.com/podcast/ballad-green-beret/.

Podcast listeners: Now become a Ricochet member for only $2.50 a month! Join and see what you’ve been missing: https://ricochet.com/join/.

Subscribe to The Bookmonger with John J. Miller in iTunes (and leave a 5-star review, please!), or by RSS feed. For all our podcasts in one place, subscribe to the Ricochet Audio Network Superfeed in iTunes or by RSS feed.

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We know what the Founding Fathers said, but what did they mean? That’s the question Thomas G. Westasks, then answers, in The Political Theory of the American Founding: Natural Rights, Public Policy, and the Moral Conditions of Freedom.

In a 10-minute conversation with The Bookmonger, West interprets the phrase “all men are created,” explains how a slaveholder such as Thomas Jefferson could have written those words, and speculates on what the Founders would think of 21st-century America.

Join the conversation and comment on this podcast episode: https://ricochet.com/podcast/political-theory-american-founding/.

Podcast listeners: Now become a Ricochet member for only $2.50 a month! Join and see what you’ve been missing: https://ricochet.com/join/.

Subscribe to The Bookmonger with John J. Miller in iTunes (and leave a 5-star review, please!), or by RSS feed. For all our podcasts in one place, subscribe to the Ricochet Audio Network Superfeed in iTunes or by RSS feed.

Sponsored by Casper

Lots of people read and watched National Review’s William F. Buckley Jr.–and some of them did it from the White House, explains Alvin S. Felzenberg in A Man and His Presidents: The Political Odyssey of William F. Buckley Jr.

In a short conversation with The Bookmonger, Felzenberg explains Buckley’s behind-the-scenes role as a political advisor, how Buckley got to know Ronald Reagan, and what Buckley (who died in 2008) might think of President Trump.

Join the conversation and comment on this podcast episode: https://ricochet.com/podcast/man-presidents-political-odyssey-william-f-buckley-jr/.

Podcast listeners: Now become a Ricochet member for only $2.50 a month! Join and see what you’ve been missing: https://ricochet.com/join/.

Subscribe to The Bookmonger with John J. Miller in iTunes (and leave a 5-star review, please!), or by RSS feed. For all our podcasts in one place, subscribe to the Ricochet Audio Network Superfeed in iTunes or by RSS feed.

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What’s so special about the Special Forces? Mark Moyar tells all in Oppose Any Foe: The Rise of America’s Special Operations Forces.

In a 10-minute conversation with The Bookmonger, Moyar describes how Navy SEALS, Delta Force, and others differ from the conventional military, why presidents and the public are prone to romanticizing them, how President Trump ought to use them.

Join the conversation and comment on this podcast episode: https://ricochet.com/podcast/oppose-foe-rise-americas-special-operations-forces/.

Podcast listeners: Now become a Ricochet member for only $2.50 a month! Join and see what you’ve been missing: https://ricochet.com/join/.

Subscribe to The Bookmonger with John J. Miller in iTunes (and leave a 5-star review, please!), or by RSS feed. For all our podcasts in one place, subscribe to the Ricochet Audio Network Superfeed in iTunes or by RSS feed.

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He was a movie star who played Moses and Ben-Hur, but some of his most famous roles took place on the stage of politics, writes Marc Eliot in Charlton Heston: Hollywood’s Last Icon.

In a 10-minute conversation with The Bookmonger, Eliot explains what make Heston such a compelling figure on screen, picks his favorite Heston movie (it’s a surprise), and describes Heston’s friendship with Ronald Reagan.

Join the conversation and comment on this podcast episode: https://ricochet.com/podcast/charlton-heston-hollywoods-last-icon/.

Podcast listeners: Now become a Ricochet member for only $2.50 a month! Join and see what you’ve been missing: https://ricochet.com/join/.

Subscribe to The Bookmonger with John J. Miller in iTunes (and leave a 5-star review, please!), or by RSS feed. For all our podcasts in one place, subscribe to the Ricochet Audio Network Superfeed in iTunes or by RSS feed.

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Fifty years ago, the New York Review of Books savaged Making It, the 1967 memoir by Norman Podhoretz–and now, amazingly, the New York Review’s book imprint is bringing out a new edition.

In a 10-minute conversation with The Bookmonger, Podhoretz explains what his half-century-old book has to say to readers now, whether he was surprised by the offer to republish it, and how he became a neoconservative. He also discusses Commentary magazine, which he edited for many years, and reveals what he thinks of the performance of its current editor: his son, John Podhoretz.

Join the conversation and comment on this podcast episode: https://ricochet.com/podcast/making-it/.

Podcast listeners: Now become a Ricochet member for only $2.50 a month! Join and see what you’ve been missing: https://ricochet.com/join/.

Subscribe to The Bookmonger with John J. Miller in iTunes (and leave a 5-star review, please!), or by RSS feed. For all our podcasts in one place, subscribe to the Ricochet Audio Network Superfeed in iTunes or by RSS feed.

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They plotted a literary revolution. Both became famous in their time, but only one endures in the popular imagination today, says James McGrath Morris, author of The Ambulance Drivers: Hemingway, Dos Passos, and a Friendship Made and Lost in War.

In a 10-minute conversation with The Bookmonger, Morris describes why Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos drove ambulances during the First World War rather than served as soldiers, how they became pals, and which of their books are worth reading today. He also describes the poltical journey of Dos Passos, who began life on the pacifist left and finished it as a contributor to National Review.

Join the conversation and comment on this podcast episode: https://ricochet.com/podcast/ambulance-drives-hemingway-dos-passos-friendship-made-lost-war/.

Podcast listeners: Now become a Ricochet member for only $2.50 a month! Join and see what you’ve been missing: https://ricochet.com/join/.

Subscribe to The Bookmonger with John J. Miller in iTunes (and leave a 5-star review, please!), or by RSS feed. For all our podcasts in one place, subscribe to the Ricochet Audio Network Superfeed in iTunes or by RSS feed.

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What does Herbert Hoover have to say to 21st-century conservatives? Quite a bit, according to George Nash, who has written an introduction to a new edition of American Individualism, first published almost a century ago.

In a 10-minute conversation with The Bookmonger, Nash describes how Hoover became a believer in American exceptionalism and why so many historians regard his presidency as a failure. Toward the end, Nash–who also wrote The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America–explains what Trumpism means for the conservative movement.

Join the conversation and comment on this podcast episode: https://ricochet.com/podcast/american-individualism/.

Podcast listeners: Now become a Ricochet member for only $2.50 a month! Join and see what you’ve been missing: https://ricochet.com/join/.

Subscribe to The Bookmonger with John J. Miller in iTunes (and leave a 5-star review, please!), or by RSS feed. For all our podcasts in one place, subscribe to the Ricochet Audio Network Superfeed in iTunes or by RSS feed.

Sponsored by Zip Recruiter

It sets us apart from animals, and it’s the subject of Roger Scruton‘s new book: On Human Nature.

In a 10-minute conversation with The Bookmonger, Scruton explains how his short volume differs from Edward O. Wilson’s influential book of the same name, whether human nature ever changes, and how science has the potential to dehumanize.

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Podcast listeners: Now become a Ricochet member for only $2.50 month! Join and see what you’ve been missing: https://ricochet.com/join/.