Sponsored by Zip Recruiter

A 21st-century Manhattan Project lies at the heart of The Quantum Spy, the new espionage novel by David Ignatius.

In a 10-minute conversation with The Bookmonger, Ignatius explains the potential of quantum computing, the rivalry between the CIA and the intelligence services of China, and why spies enclose the truth in"a carapace of deceit."

Join the conversation and comment on this podcast episode: https://ricochet.com/podcast/bookmonger-john-miller/the-quantum-spy/.

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

The explosion was so enormous, it killed 2,000 people and erupted into a mushroom cloud long before the Manhattan Project-and John U. Bacon writes about how and why it happened in The Great Halifax Explosion: A World War I Story of Treachery, Tragedy, and Extraordinary Heroism.

In a 10-minute conversation with The Bookmonger, Bacon describes the horrible events of December 6, 1917 as well as what lessons the disaster holds for us today. He also explains how his interest in this story began through his love of hockey.

Join the conversation and comment on this podcast episode: https://ricochet.com/podcast/bookmonger-john-miller/great-halifax-explosion-world-war-story-treachery-tragedy-extraordinary-heroism/.

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

Happy Halloween! This episode of The Bookmonger features a 10-minute conversation with Leslie S. Klinger, editor of The New Annotated Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley. Why has Shelley's novel endured for two centuries? What does its fame owe to Boris Karloff and the movies? Does it hold any special lessons in our age of rapid scientific and technological advances?

Join the conversation and comment on this podcast episode: https://ricochet.com/podcast/bookmonger-john-miller/new-annotated-frankenstein/.

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

Antonin Scalia was not merely a great legal mind, he was also a great writer-as Christopher J. Scalia reveals in Scalia Speaks: Reflections on Law, Faith, and Life Well Lived, a collection of speeches by his late father (and co-edited with Edward Whelan).

In a 10-minute conversation with The Bookmonger, Scalia describes assembling this book from his father's papers, how the elder Scalia learned to write so well and on so many topics (from the value of the arts to the wonders of turkey hunting), and on his surprising friendship with fellow Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Join the conversation and comment on this podcast episode: https://ricochet.com/podcast/bookmonger-john-miller/scalia-speaks-relections-law-faith-life-well-lived/.

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

World War II was in fact many wars, writes Victor Davis Hanson in The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won.

In a 10-minute conversation with The Bookmonger, Hanson describes why he avoided writing yet another chronological or operational history of World War II, how the Allies were able to suffer so many casualties and still win, and why better statesmanship in the 1930s might have prevented this terrible conflict from erupting.

Join the conversation and comment on this podcast episode: https://ricochet.com/podcast/bookmonger-john-miller/second-world-wars-first-global-conflict-fought-won/.

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

Understanding Ukraine today is impossible without also understanding what the Soviet Union did to it in the 1930, says Anne Applebaum, author of Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine.

In a 10-minute conversation with The Bookmonger, Applebaum describes Stalin's act of mass murder against the Ukrainian people, how knowledge of this enormity slowly seeped into the West, and how its aftereffects continue to influence Ukraine's present confrontation with Russia.

Join the conversation and comment on this podcast episode: https://ricochet.com/podcast/bookmonger-john-miller/red-famine-stalins-war-ukraine/.

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

Who were the Maya and what did they believe? Oswaldo Chinchilla Mazariegos explains in Art and Myth of the Ancient Maya.

In a 10-minute conversation with The Bookmonger, Chinchilla describes what compelled him to devote his professional life to the study of these ancient people, what the images they put on vases and murals tells us about them, and why they become a "lost civilization."

Join the conversation and comment on this podcast episode: https://ricochet.com/podcast/bookmonger-john-miller/art-myth-ancient-maya/.

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

How did a woman who loved poetry as a student at Hillsdale College become one of the 20th century's great cryptanalysts? Jason Fagone tells the remarkable story of Elizebeth Smith Friedman in The Woman Who Smashed Codes: A True Story of Love, Spies, and the Unlikely Heroine who Outwitted America's Enemies.

In a 10-minute conversation with The Bookmonger, Fagone describes how fondness for Shakespeare turned a young woman into a codebreaker, how she hunted fascist agents during the Second World War, and how she and her husband were present at the creation of the National Security Agency.

Join the conversation and comment on this podcast episode: https://ricochet.com/podcast/bookmonger-john-miller/woman-smashed-codes-true-story-love-spies-unlikely-heroine-outwitted-americas-enemies/.

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

Becoming a papal biographer will change your life-or so it seems, judging from George Weigel';s Lessons in Hope: My Unexpected Life with St. John Paul II.

In a 10-minute conversation with The Bookmonger, Weigel defends his claim that the late pope was "the emblematic figure of the second half of the 20th century," and suggests what he might say to Americans in 2017, if he could give one more homily.

Join the conversation and comment on this podcast episode: https://ricochet.com/podcast/bookmonger-john-miller/lessons-hope-unexpected-life-st-john-paul-ii/.

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

It's a novel of faith, freedom, and forgiveness says John E. Kramer, author of Blythe.

In a 10-minute conversation with The Bookmonger, Kramer explains how and why he wrote the book, whether fiction can accomplish goals that nonfiction cannot, and why he picked this for an epigraph: "One of mankind's greatest sins is inaction in the face of injustice."

Join the conversation and comment on this podcast episode: https://ricochet.com/podcast/bookmonger-john-miller/blythe/.

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.