The University Bookman

Reviewing Books that Build Culture

Watch James Panero of the New Criterion discuss “The Urbanity of Russell Kirk” at the 2025 Gerald Russello Memorial Lecture.

The Urbanity of Russell Kirk

“The urban fabric must also be mended and darned through continuous upkeep. The city is not yours to experiment. From Russell to Russello, our ancestral spirits cast their shadows whether or not we choose to observe the city of god in the cities of men.”

In Praise of Poetry and Form

“Majmudar often takes the long view, and from the long view, free verse is a new arrival in a variegated poetic history that stretches back into prehistory. To embrace it alone is to cut oneself off from that sweeping history and from the resources to be found there. There is still vitality in these neglected traditions. They are not a dead past.”

Monster is the Machine

“Few outside of Tolkien’s most dedicated students, however, were aware that he had written an entire satirical story against the automobile… [It] is (or rather was) the last significant piece of original Tolkien fiction to remain unpublished.”

After the New Left: Rereading Breaking Ranks

“The recent death of Norman Podhoretz prompted me to return to his ‘political memoir…’ Published in 1979, it deserves to be read or re-read today—and not simply as a historical account of his evolution from left to right during the 1960s and 1970s.”

Narrating the Future

Narrating the Future

Carl Lawrence Paulus reviews a history of the national grand narratives during a period of great change, the years leading up to the Civil War.

Two Tolkiens on View

Two Tolkiens on View

Alexi Sargeant reviews the exhibit Tolkien: Maker of Middle Earth, now at the Morgan Library in New York through May.

Why Make Men Pigs

Why Make Men Pigs

Colleen Curran reviews Madeline Miller’s move from myth to novel as she works with a character from the Odyssey.

The Book Gallery

A collection of conversations with Bookman editor Luke C. Sheahan and writers and authors of imagination and erudition. Click on the icon in the upper right corner of the video to see more episodes in this series or check out our YouTube page.

I have a review at the University Bookman (@KirkCenter) today of @AmitMajmudar's The Great Game: Essays on Poetics (@acre_books). Check it out 👇.

"No one...takes poetic hairpin turns at speed like Majmudar does. His poems are full of sonic swerves and surprises..."

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