“The Truths We Keep Coming Back and Back to”: A Critical Sampling of Gloria Whelan’s Short Fiction
Playing with Shadows By Gloria Whelan. University of Illinois Press, 1988. Paperback, 160 pages, $12.95. Reviewed by James E. Person Jr. “You are undoubtedly the best writer of short stories ever to inhabit Michigan!” wrote Russell Kirk to his friend Gloria Whelan...
Every Line Read Is a Gain
The Unforgivable and Other Writings By Cristina Campo. Translated from the Italian by Alex Andriesse. Introduction by Kathryn Davis. New York Review Books Classics, 2024. Paperback, 288 pages, $18.95. Reviewed by Fr. Joseph Hudson. There is an image near the...
TFAS Public Policy Fellows Explore The Roots of American Order at Piety Hill
TFAS Public Policy Fellows Explore The Roots of American Order at Piety Hill From October 15–18, the Russell Kirk Center welcomed twenty Woodhouse Public Policy Fellows from The Fund for American Studies (TFAS) for a thought-provoking seminar on Russell Kirk’s...
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...
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