Abolitionism’s George Washington
The Conductor: The Story of Rev. John Rankin, Abolitionism’s Essential Founding Father By Caleb Franz. Post Hill Press, 2024. Paperback, 336 pages, $18.99. Reviewed by Peter Biles. The past is like a waterfall, and history is like the glass of water we pull from it....
A Novel Individual: An Interview with William F. Buckley Jr. on his Fiction
Interviewed by William F. Meehan III This interview ran in The University Bookman in 1996 (vol. 36, no. 2, pp. 25-32), when Jeffrey O. Nelson, who was the journal’s editor, expertly turned the lengthy manuscript of my 90-minute interview into a coherent, polished...
Life During Wartime
To Go On Living: Stories By Narine Abgaryan. Plough, 2025. Hardcover, 220 pages, $24.95. Reviewed by Michial Farmer. Modern Westerners live with a delusion. We actually live with a lot of delusions, but perhaps the most insidious one is that the normal condition of...
The Triumph of Love
Muses of a Fire: Essays on Faith, Film, and Literature By Paul Krause. Stone Tower Press, 2024. Paperback, 227 pages, $24.95. Reviewed by Jesse Russell. Roman Polanski’s 1974 masterpiece Chinatown is not only a classic of film noir, but it is also one of the greatest...
Understanding the Rest of Hemingway’s Iceberg
Hemingway’s Art of Revision: The Making of the Short Fiction By John Beall. Louisiana State University Press, 2024. Hardcover, 310 pages, $50. Reviewed by Sean C. Hadley. In Brad Paisley’s 2005 hit song, “Alcohol,” the country musician sings about the praises and...
The Postmodern Poetry of J.R.R. Tolkien
The Collected Poems of J.R.R. Tolkien: Three-Volume Box Set By J.R.R. Tolkien. Edited by Christina Scull & Wayne G. Hammond. William Morrow, 2024. Hardcover, 1728 pages, $125. Reviewed by Michael Lucchese. J.R.R. Tolkien surely ranks among the greatest novelists...
Catholic Zen
Person Means Relation By David Walsh. St. Augustine’s Press, 2024. Paperback, 110 pages, $16. Reviewed by Robert Grant Price. Those familiar with the writing of personalist philosopher David Walsh know that he’s densely aphoristic. Large tracts of his works, notably...
Outlining Sanity in the Garden
The Tao of Vegetable Gardening: Cultivating Tomatoes, Greens, Peas, Beans, Squash, Joy, and Serenity By Carol Deppe. Chelsea Green Publishing, 2015. Paperback, 288 pages, $24.95. Reviewed by Eric Scheske. American gardening literature is a big thing. Amazon has an...
Holy Living After the Fall
After Christendom By Michael Warren Davis. Sophia Institute Press, 2024. Paperback, 213 pages, $17.89. Reviewed by Thomas Banks. This is a fairly simple book—part polemic and part spiritual manual. Mr. Davis, its author, is best known for his previous work, The...
For America250, @lsheahan enters the fray:
What the American Revolution Secured: Order, Justice, and Freedom
A "revolution not made, but prevented.” Russell Kirk fondly and frequently quoted E. J. Payne’s pithy summary of Burke’s view of the Glorious Revolution.
"So yes, Lord Alfred, perhaps you are right after all. ’Tis not too late to seek a newer world! Perhaps one last Ulyssean adventure remains beyond the sunset, and perhaps some work of noble note may yet be done."