The Back of the Book

The first topic for our new season is an important one, and that’s no lie. Chris talks to Christian B. Miller, the A.C. Reid Professor of Philosophy at Wake Forest University, about the virtue of honesty. What does it mean to be honest? Is it more rewarding—and less risky—to be dishonest today than it was in the past? How are Americans dishonest today online, on campus, and in politics? Christian’s new book is The Honesty Crisis: Preserving Our Most Treasured Virtue in an Increasingly Dishonest World (Oxford, 2026).

Time Stamps:
2:49 What is honesty?
15:14 Deepfakes and online infidelity
31:07 Academic dishonesty and the tragedy of Jason Arday
42:39 Honesty and politics
52:39 The exception of the arts

Show Notes:
Christian B. Miller’s book, The Honesty Crisis
Billy Joel, “Honesty”
Opening and closing music: Brendan Benson, “Spit It Out,” used with permission from the artist.

Produced by Keira Stenson.

In this special double feature, Chris welcomes the authors of two new books about the American way of life—one about the many things that make it great, and the other about something we’ve lost. First, Matthew Mehan of Hillsdale College’s Washington, DC, campus discusses his latest children's book, The American Book of Fables, a collection to help the young and old celebrate America’s 250th birthday. And in the back half, Andy Smarick of the Manhattan Institute talks about his first novel, Community Day, a mystery about the distressing decline of civil society.

Show notes: 
Matt's book, The American Book of Fables
Andy's novel, Community Day, on Substack and Amazon
Matt's other work
Andy's other work
Time stamps: 
0:49 – Matthew Mehan on The American Book of Fables
29:01 – Andy Smarick on Community Day 

Opening and closing music: Brendan Benson, “Spit It Out,” used with permission from the artist. 

Produced by Sean Doolan & Keira Stenson.

Chris talks to Melanie McDonagh about her new book, Converts: From Oscar Wilde to Muriel Spark, Why So Many Became Catholic in the 20th Century. Dr. McDonagh discusses some of the prominent (and less familiar) British artists, writers, and intellectuals who entered the Roman Catholic from the 1890s through the 1950s. What were the social and cultural origins of the century’s remarkable increase in Catholic conversions? What people and ideas brought figures like Wilde, Graham Greene, and Evelyn Waugh to Catholicism? And why did the stream of conversions drop off so dramatically in the 1960s?

Show notes: 
Melanie’s book, Converts
Melanie’s column at The Standard
David Jones, “Vexilla Regis”
Chris on Evelyn Waugh and Muriel Spark
Time stamps:
 
3:00 – Why chronicle conversions?
7:32 – The influence of St. John Henry Newman
13:07 – Origins of the conversion trend
31:43 – Clerics courting converts
36:55 – Sacramentality and art
52:00 – Vatican II and the Church today

Opening and closing music: Brendan Benson, “Spit It Out,” used with permission from the artist.

Produced by Sean Doolan.

Sean Keilen, professor of literature at the University of California, Santa Cruz, talks with Chris about his new book, Shakespeare's Scholars: Three Lessons from the Liberal Arts. They discuss how Shakespeare depicts the role of scholars in Hamlet and The Tempest, what Shakespeare can teach us about the scholar’s proper relationship to the public, and the current state of literary studies in academia.

Show notes: 
Sean’s book, Shakespeare’s Scholars
UC Santa Cruz’s Shakespeare Workshop
Santa Cruz Shakespeare
 Time stamps:
 3:03 – Shakespeare's academy
18:12 – Hamlet
38:38 – The Tempest
52:50 – Scholarship inside (and outside) the academy

Opening and closing music: Brendan Benson, “Spit It Out,” used with permission from the artist.

Produced by Sean Doolan.

In this special episode, recorded as part of AEI’s American Dream Lecture Series, Dr. Zena Hitz addresses the role of liberal education in sustaining the democratic project. She also identifies the most significant threats to liberal learning and offers practical remedies that might address them. After her lecture, Zena sat down with Chris for a conversation and fielded questions from the audience at AEI.

Show notes: 
Zena’s books, A Philosopher Looks at the Religious Life and Lost in Thought
Learn more about St. John's College and the Catherine Project
Watch previous editions of AEI’s American Dream Lecture Series
Time stamps:
 5:04 – Zena’s lecture
36:53 – Zena’s conversation with Chris
56:38 – Audience Q&A

Opening and closing music: Brendan Benson, “Spit It Out,” used with permission from the artist.

Produced by Sean Doolan.