Decline and fall of the Amazon database, part 5,271,009: Who hasn’t heard of Garry Wills? From Nixon Agonistes to Papal Sin, from Chesterton to the Pulitzer Prize-winning Lincoln at Gettysburg, his wide-ranging interests and elegant polemics have earned him decades of attention and acclaim.

Now the great public intellectual blazes a new trail as the work-for-hire author of children’s book series volumes, with Ghost Beach: Goosebumps #22, by, it says right here, R. L. Stine and Garry Wills. “Anticipating the fun of exploring a cave he finds down by the beach, Jerry dismisses the story the other kids tell him of the spooky three-hundred-year-old ghost that lives in the cave and comes out when the moon is full.” The story of St. Augustine’s influence on our modern idea of narrative intertwines with a magisterial exposition of nineteenth-century cave discoveries and their role in the popular press. Jerry’s dramatic realization of the true relationship of history to the imagination delivers a powerful new picture of the Founding Fathers and their intellectual roots in the Scottish Enlightenment. Don’t miss it. [05:03 PM]