The University Bookman
Reviewing Books that Build Culture
To Find Eyes to See
“Hren selects earnest classics that have stood the test of time—books that generations of readers have found edifying and moving. But also, in the introduction and conclusion alike, Hren returns to another key point of fiction: it doesn’t just help us see extraordinary truth, although it can. More important is that fiction gives us eyes to see the transcendence of ordinary lives, including our own.”
Rural America as It Really Is
“Harold Bell Wright, regardless of how literary tastemakers viewed him in the 1920s, is the central figure in the origin of Branson. Though denigrated by the Baldwins and H. L. Menckens of his day, Wright was one of the century’s best-selling novelists.”
The Poet Watches Birds
“Jennifer A. Hartenburg’s debut collection of poems… offers such a poetic practice of waking, attending, and caring. These are poems rich with the life of the world, flocking with birds and bees both literal and metaphorical, but also closely attentive to the quiddities of language and the motions of the soul.”
John Lukács: The Consciousness—and Conscience—of an Historian
“Rather, ‘history’ is an irreducibly human cognitive and moral activity that shapes identity, yields personal and collective meaning, and embodies how people understand their present and future. For Lukács, every person is a ‘historian’ because all human persons live with memories and interpretations of their past.”
Continually Revising History
“[The book] is a rich resource for Voegelin scholars to consult for their own academic and intellectual pursuits.”
G. K. Chesterton, Friend of Truth
“Each essay is well worth reading on its own, which should be the case whether you are a trained philosopher or something less—or more—than that.”
Toward an American Iliad
“As we approach our country’s 250th… Courage is needed, as is fidelity to the bond of ordered liberty that once spurred our forefathers to take up arms to secure the peace and safety we now enjoy.”
And I Will Go to the Altar of God
“…Professor Sheehan explores the development of the idea of sacrifice from its early roots in the pre-Christian classical world.”
A Liberal Who Met the Cancel Mob
“Biggar sees this aversion to reason and evidence (at least when they interfere with a politically useful narrative) to contain ‘the springs of tyranny,’ since once those are abandoned, the only means left to resolve disagreements is power. Thus, ‘postcolonialists and other “progressive” zealots assume an aggressive, intimidating, repressive, tyrannical posture.’”
The Book Gallery
A collection of conversations with Bookman editor Luke C. Sheahan and writers and authors of imagination and erudition. Click on the icon in the upper right corner of the video to see more episodes in this series or check out our YouTube page.
Register for our next book gallery on June 22, 2026:
Russell Kirk On America: How to Understand the Legacy of 1776
