The Bookmonger

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What’s the meaning of meaning? Now there’s a heady question–but one that Emily Esfahani Smith tackles with clear-headed, narrative prose in The Power of Meaning: Crafting a Life that Matters.

In a 10-minute conversation with The Bookmonger, Smith discusses the ingredients of a meaningful life, argues that happiness is overrated, and describes how the rise of social media and the decline of religious faith have shaped the modern search for meaning.

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It sounds like the subtitle of an Indiana Jones movie, but The Lost City of the Monkey God is the name of the new nonfiction book by Douglas Preston.

In a 10-minute conversation with The Bookmonger, Preston explains what it’s like to find the ruins of an unknown city in an impenetrable jungle full of venom-spitting snakes and prowling jaguars, how he and his team even know to look for the place in the most remote regions of Honduras, and who were the people who lived there centuries ago.

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Scholars constantly discover new information and offer new insights on William Shakespeare, says Gary Taylor, editor of The New Oxford Shakespeare.

In a 10-minute conversation with The Bookmonger, Taylor explains why so many people regard Shakespeare as the greatest author in the English language, how researchers have used big data to learn about Shakespeare’s collaborations with Christopher Marlowe and other writers, and why he likes Othello so much.

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William F. Buckley, Jr. called him “the greatest English novelist of the [20th] century”–and so does Philip Eade, author of Evelyn Waugh: A Life Revisited.

In a 10-minute conversation with The Bookmonger, Eade describes Waugh’s legacy, picks his best books, and explains his conservatism. Also, he answers the most important question of all: When Evelyn Waugh married Evelyn Gardner, did she take his name?

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Entrepreneurs are under attack, says Dick M. Carpenter II, co-author of Bottleneckers: Gaming the Government for Power and Private Profit.

In a 10-minute conversation with The Bookmonger, Carpenter explains that “bottleneckers” are creating cartels to keep people from becoming everything from hairbraiders to taxi drivers. He discusses how conservatives and liberals might come together to oppose these crony capitalists, also also describes how the new technologies of the sharing economy are helping Uber and Airbnb redefine the rules of modern business.

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They’re unelected, unaccountable, and out of control–and Paul D. Moreno takes them on in The Bureaucrat Kings: The Origins and Underpinnings of America’s Bureaucratic State.

In a 10-minute conversation with The Bookmonger, Moreno describes how and why Congress has allowed the administration state to grow in size and strength for more than a century–and what citizens and statesmen can do right now to recover what we’ve lost.

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Bernard Cornwell seeks to retell the history of England’s founding through his historical novels–and the adventure continues in his latest, The Flame Bearer.

In a 10-minute conversation with The Bookmonger, Cornwell discusses why Alfred the Great was so great, how his main character is loosely based on one of his own ancient ancestors, and for how long he thinks he’ll keep on adding new titles to this current series of books.

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From the Peloponnesian Wars and Punic Wars of antiquity to America’s 20th-century confrontation with the Soviet Union, we have much to learn from the clashes of the past, says James Lacey, editor of Great Strategic Rivalries: From the Classical World to the Cold War.

In a 10-minute conversation with The Bookmonger, Lacey describes the rules of rivalries, from how they start to how they end, and discusses possible major rivalries of the 21st century. He also provides advice on how the United States can prepare for the inevitable showdown.

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Art and politics always have mixed, but lately the art world has surrendered to the toxic cult of race, gender, and class, says Sohrab Ahmari in The New Philistines: How Identity Politics Disfigure the Arts.

In a 10-minute conversation with The Bookmonger, Ahmari explains how a rotten production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream compelled him to write his book, how contemporary artistic treatments of race differ from the sophistication of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, and where Americans can find great art today.

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It’s the most mysterious manuscript in the world, says Raymond Clemens, editor of The Voynich Manuscript.

In a 10-minute conversation with The Bookmonger, Clemens describes why people are so fascinated by this medieval document that has puzzled cryptographers and sparked imaginations. He also explains how it came into the possession of Yale’s rare books library and why Yale University Press has now issued a photo-facsimile edition of this beguiling book.

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