Today we have a special edition of The Bookmonger, a conversation with Rick and Karen Santorum about their new book, Bella’s Gift: How One Little Girl Transformed Our Family and Inspired a Nation. First we discuss their daughter, the victim of Trisomy 18, a rare genetic disorder similar to Down Syndrome. What challenges does Bella present and what has she taught the Santorum family?

Then we talk shop: Will Rick run for president in 2016? (Spoiler alert: He’s thinking about it but, disappointingly, refused to make a major announcement during our 10-minute conversation.) Rick explains went wrong in 2012 and how can Republicans prevail next year, plus how GOP senator Pat Toomey can win re-election in purplish Pennsylvania, where Rick is 2-1 in statewide elections.

Who is Brent Scowcroft? Mastermind of geopolitical realism? Scourge of neoconservative idealism? 

In The Bookmonger’s latest 10-minute podcast, we try to summarize the life and legacy of the man Bartholomew Sparrow calls The Strategist. That’s the title of his new biography, which is subtitled Brent Scowcroft and the Call of National Security.

Michael Kinsley once said that the scandal of Washington is not what’s illegal, but what’s legal. In today’s Bookmonger podcast, Jay Cost of the Weekly Standard and I take up the problem of political corruption.

Jay’s new book is A Republic No More: Big Government and the Rise of American Political Corruption. In our 10-minute talk, we discuss whether Tammany Hall was more corrupt than today’s Washington, whether civil-service rules are better than the old-fashioned spoils system of patronage, and how Jay would go about fixing the whole big mess.

The Federalist Society: A debating club for right-of-center lawyers and students, or a sinister element in the vast right-wing conspiracy?

Today’s guest on The Bookmonger is Amanda Hollis-Brusky, author of Ideas with Consequences: The Federalist Society and the Conservative Counterrevolution. In our 10-minute conversation, she discusses the group’s origins and influence, as well as why the Left, even though it dominates law schools, has had trouble launching a competitor.

Rena Pederson calls Burma’s Aung San Suu Kyi a “moral celebrity” in the pattern of Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, and Mother Teresa. In our latest edition of The Bookmonger, the author of The Burma Spring explains why. She also describes what the U.S. government can do right now to support freedom in this troubled country as well as what we should call it: Burma or Myanmar? She prefers Burma, as her book title indicates, and has a reason for preferring it.

The Bookmonger podcast will appear on Mondays — or on Tuesdays, when we have a special reason. And today, we have a special reason: We’re launching the series this week (go here for yesterday’s first edition) and we want to share fresh content. Listen to my 10-minute conversation with Daniel DiSalvo, author of Government Against Itself: Public Union Power and Its Consequences.

We talk about why public-employee unions are a problem, whether cops and firefighters deserve collective-bargaining rights, and why labor economists and labor historians have failed to study this phenomenon of modern liberalism.

From John J. Miller: For more than seven years, I’ve hosted an author-interview podcast at National Review Online–and starting right now, we’re jointly producing it with Ricochet.

 Rechristened as “The Bookmonger” (and formerly called “Between the Covers”), the podcast features 10-minute conversations with the writers of today’s best books on current events, politics, history, and more.