Confronting our Current Digital Malaise
The One and the Ninety-Nine: Forging Identity in the Age of Social Contagion By Luke Burgis. St. Martin’s Press, 2026. Hardcover, 288 pages, $30. Reviewed by Gene Callahan. Luke Burgis has written an interesting book exploring the tension between belonging and...
A Secular Confession
Nothing Left: Confessions of a Democratic Operative By Evan Barker. Simon and Schuster, 2026. Hardcover, 288 pages, $29. Reviewed by John C. “Chuck” Chalberg. The journey from left to right is a staple of American political memoirs. But few journeys have been as...
Ames, Hamilton, Marshall: Russell Kirk’s Other Founding Federalists
By Michael Lucchese. A Russell Kirk Center Special Series Throughout the semiquincentennial year celebrating America’s independence, The University Bookman will invite a range of writers and speakers to contribute to a series drawing upon Russell Kirk’s work on the...
Going West, Berlin Style
Cold War City: A History of West Berlin By David E. Barclay. Princeton University Press, 2026. Hardcover, 680 pages, $39.95. Reviewed by Nadya Williams. It is perhaps fitting that after spending the first decade of my life in the Soviet Union, I first learned...
More Religion, Less Spiritualism, Please
The Foundations of Re-Enchantment: Freemasonry, Theosophy, and the Occult Revival By Christopher Coome. Oxford University Press, 2025. Hardcover, 392 pages, $99. Reviewed by Camilo Peralta. The decline of faith in the modern world remains a popular and contentious...
Letters of a Literary Legend
The Man Who Read Everything: The Literary Letters of Harold Bloom Edited by Heather Cass White. Yale University Press, 2026. Hardcover, 248 pages, $30. Reviewed by Oliver Spivey. Harold Bloom (1930-2019), with his preternaturally expansive intellect, stocked with...
Shakespeare and the Art of Reading
Shakespeare’s Scholars: Three Lessons From the Liberal Arts By Sean Keilen. Princeton University Press, 2026. Hardcover, 184 pages, $24.95. Reviewed by Jesse Russell. “What we need are places, i.e., a table with some chairs around it, in which we can learn again to...
A Collection of Children’s Stories That Transcends the Usual Fare
Sir Biscuit Butterworth and Other Short Stories, Poems, and Fables By Paul Krause. Resource Publications, 2026. Paperback, 66 pages, $9. Reviewed by Auguste Meyrat. These days, turning kids into readers during the formative years of elementary school is a real...
The Brothers Stuart and the Rise of Protestant England
Charles II By Hilaire Belloc. Mysterium Press, 2026. Hardcover, 252 pages, $24.95. James II By Hilaire Belloc. Mysterium Press, 2026. Hardcover, 264 pages, $24.95. Reviewed by Thomas Banks. Hilaire Belloc penned an impressive cycle of historical biographies,...
The Fog of the American War for Independence
War Without Mercy: Liberty or Death in the American Revolution By Mark Edward Lender and James Kirby Martin. Osprey Publishing, 2025. Hardcover, 288 pages, $32. Reviewed by Gil Barndollar. Amid tepid national fairs, cinematic slop, and sporting exits, America is...
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