Writing, Teaching, Virtues
On Revision: The Only Writing That Counts by William Germano. University of Chicago Press, 2021. Paperback, 208 pages, $20. Reviewed by David Hein William Germano, a seasoned teacher and writer who has served as editor-in-chief at Columbia University Press and...
Education as a Moral Enterprise
McGuffey and His Readers: Piety, Morality, and Education in Nineteenth-Century America by John H. Westerhoff III. Abingdon, 1978. Hardcover, 206 pages. Reviewed by Christine Norvell In the history of education in America, many Americans no longer know how common...
C. S. Lewis’s Indispensable Guide
After Humanity: A Guide to C. S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man. by Michael Ward. Word on Fire Academic, 2021. Hardcover, 253 pages, $24.95. Reviewed by Chris Butynskyi Accessibility is a hallmark of the works of C. S. Lewis, and an element that made him one...
Lessons of Nationalism
Blood and Iron: The Rise and Fall of the German Empire By Katja Hoyer. Pegasus Books, 2021. Hardcover, 272 pages, $27.95. Reviewed by Casey Chalk Today the word nationalism provokes immediate fears of a resurgent “blood and soil” fascism. Nationalism stokes “racist or...
Theroux and the Pleasure of Reading
Alexander Theroux: A Fan’s Notes By Steven Moore. Zerogram Press, 2020. Paperback, 264 pages, $19.95. Reviewed by Jeffrey Wald Writing about a writer writing about another writer … Does this create the potential for an infinite regress? Perhaps. With such a risk in...
The Internet Giveth and the Internet Taketh Away
100 Things We’ve Lost to the Internet By Pamela Paul. Crown, 2021. Hardcover, 288 pages, $27. Reviewed by Auguste Meyrat Few inventions in recent memory have been more disruptive and influential than the internet. Only a few decades ago, the great whole of humanity...
Much More than a Decadent
Lionel Johnson: Poetry and Prose Edited by Robert Asch. Saint Austin Press, 2021. Hardcover, 544 pages, $39.90. “And who shall say, that to know the great Masters is not the first necessity of an artist? Yet we might think, that a true man of letters would...
Beauty Is the Friendly Voice of God
Unearthly Beauty: The Aesthetics of St John Henry Newman by Guy Nicholls. Gracewing, 2019. Hardcover, 352 pages, $36. Reviewed by Daniel James Sundahl It’s good to note at the beginning here that the Rev. Dr. Guy Nicholls is a priest at the Birmingham Oratory and...
Making Tories and Whigs
The Persistence of Party: Ideas of Harmonious Discord in Eighteenth-Century Britain by Max Skjönsberg. Cambridge University Press, 2021. Hardcover, 350 pages, $100. Reviewed by John G. Grove The “long” eighteenth century has proven to be one of the most fertile...
Ah, just your typical 663-page light summer beach read for a @ubookman book review. Makes Wealth of Nations look like a Substack essay.