She was the great dissident of Communist China, and Lian Xi tells her tale in “Blood Letters: The Untold Story of Lin Zhao, a Martyr in Mao’s China.”

In a 10-minute conversation with The Bookmonger, Lian Xi describes how Christian faith inspired Lin Zhao to speak out against to totalitarianism, how she paid for her opposition with her life, and why her remarkable writings have managed to survive.

Both liberals and conservatives are wrong about the ultimate source of the 2008 financial meltdown, write David L. Bahnsen in “Crisis of Responsibility: Our Cultural Addiction to Blame and How You Can Cure It.”

In a 10-minute conversation with The Bookmonger, Bahnsen explains why neither the actions of Wall Street nor Big Government can explain what happened and what Americans can do to recover their sense of self-government.

Bryan Caplan says that everything you think you know about education is wrong in his new book, “The Case Against Education: Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money.”

In a 10-minute conversation with The Bookmonger, Caplan explains why he as a Ph.D. holder wanted to blow the whistle on today’s schooling, describes how he’d rebuild the education system from scratch, and offers advice to parents who just want to help their kids.

A struggle between innovation and conservation will define the 21st century, says Charles C. Mann in The Wizard and the Prophet: Two Remarkable Scientists and Their Dueling Visions to Shape Tomorrow’s World.

In a 10-minute conversation with The Bookmonger, Mann describes the ideas of Norman Borlaug (the wizard) and William Vogt (the prophet), explains why their clash defined our era, and how studying the debates of the recent past can help us understand the future.

Novelist Bernard Cornwell writes about Shakespeare and his mysterious brother, Richard, in .

In a 10-minute conversation with The Bookmonger, Cornwell describes his interest in the cutthroat world of Elizabethan theater, why the Puritans hated plays, and his own experience as an actor at the Monomoy Theatre on Cape Cod.

Laura A. Sandefer describes a radical new form of K-12 education in Courage To Grow: How Acton Academy Turns Learning Upside Down.

In a 10-minute conversation with The Bookmonger, she describes why she and her husband wanted to start a new school, why it doesn’t have teachers or grades or classrooms in the traditional sense, and what she’s learned about education since founding Acton Academy almost a decade ago.

We’re still feeling a fateful year’s repercussions a century later, writes Arthur Herman in 1917: Lenin, Wilson, and the Birth of the New World Disorder.

In a 10-minute conversation with The Bookmonger, Herman explains why 1917 was such a big deal, how Vladimir Lenin and Woodrow Wilson were alike, and how the election of President Trump may mark the end of an era they began.