The Sinai Revolution and American Ordered Liberty
The Magna Carta of Humanity: Sinai’s Revolutionary Faith and the Future of Freedom By Os Guinness. InterVarsity Press, 2021. Hardcover, 288 pages, $25. Reviewed by Casey Chalk Conservatives are by default skeptical of revolutions. British statesman Edmund Burke in his...
The Girl of Slender Meanings
Muriel Spark’s Early Fiction: Literary Subversion and Experiments with Form by James Bailey. University of Edinburgh Press, 2021. Hardback, 224 pages, $100. Reviewed by Asher Gelzer-Govatos Reading critical approaches to a favorite author can be an exercise in futile...
Women’s Good News
The Women of the Bible Speak: The Wisdom of 16 Women and Their Lessons for Today By Shannon Bream. Broadside Books, 2021. Hardcover, 256 pages, $26. Reviewed by Annmarie McLaughlin It’s not every day that a major news organization promotes a book entirely about...
Town Politics
Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity By Charles L. Marohn Jr. Wiley, 2019. Hardcover, 256 pages, $25. Reviewed by Matthew Robare Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity is an amazing achievement by Charles L....
Magpies, Verbal Jugglers, and True Liberty
The Metalogicon: A Twelfth-Century Defense of the Verbal and Logical Arts of the Trivium by John of Salisbury, translated by Daniel McGarry Paul Dry Books, 2009. Paperback, 305 pages, $22.95. Reviewed by Jared Zimmerer In an age of relativism and scientific...
Breaking the Crockery
The Free World: Art and Thought in the Cold War by Louis Menand. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021. Hardcover, 857 pages $35. Reviewed by Andrew Bacevich Let us dispose of the superlatives first: In terms of both style and substance, The Free World represents an...
Breaking the Leaf-Mould
Tolkien’s Modern Reading: Middle-earth Beyond the Middle Ages by Holly Ordway. Word on Fire Academic, 2021. Hardcover, 382 pages, $24. Reviewed by John Tuttle Holly Ordway’s engrossing volume Tolkien’s Modern Reading is significant in its own right, but it also marks...
Discerning the Real
The Politics of the Real: The Church Between Liberalism and Integralism by D. C. Schindler. New Polity Press, 2021. Hardcover, 349 pages, $45. Reviewed by John Ehrett D. C. Schindler’s new volume The Politics of the Real is one of the most stimulating works of...
Ireland Since the Famine: An Appreciation
Ireland Since the Famine: 1850 to the Present by F. S. L. Lyons. Fontana Press, [1971] 1985. Paperback, 880 pages. Reviewed by John Rossi Fifty years ago, a book appeared that refined the writing and understanding of modern Irish history. F. S. L. Lyons’s...
Summer is here and the days are long. Slowing schedules allow time for many of us to sink into the queue of books that have been patiently waiting for us over the busyness of our end of spring schedules.
@lsheahan, @DavidGBonaguraJ, @darrellfalconbu
Ah, just your typical 663-page light summer beach read for a @ubookman book review. Makes Wealth of Nations look like a Substack essay.