The University Bookman

Reviewing Books that Build Culture

Join friends of the Bookman in New York City on December 8, 2025 for the Gerald Russello Memorial Lecture.

William F. Buckley Jr.: Literary Figure 

“…the American public intellectual might best be appreciated as a literary figure. Producing about 350,000 words for publication yearly at the peak of his career, Buckley was never at a loss for what to say or how to say it.”

Defending the Christian Faith

“In 100 Tough Questions For Catholics: Common Obstacles To Faith Today… David G. Bonagura, Jr. gives bite-sized answers to dozens of big questions about the faith.”

Revisiting Walter Lippmann

“Lippmann sought to be—and was—what might be described today as an influencer. As such, he never sought to wield power, but he long desired to have the ears and eyes of the powerful. Arnold-Forster is certainly not unaware of that. But it is never his central message. If there is such a message in these pages, and there is, it is his effort to make the reader aware that Walter Lippmann, believer in and defender of the efficacy of progressive government, was also Walter Lippmann, believer in and defender of both the reality and importance of empire in general and of the American empire in particular.”

Family Homes and Drive-in Churches

“After the optimism of the suburban boom, it all went bust. Mass attendance fell by 70 percent. Women’s religious life died out. Parochial education was crippled… The green grass of suburbia was starved into a desiccated, brown waste.”

William F. Buckley Jr.: Literary Figure 

“…the American public intellectual might best be appreciated as a literary figure. Producing about 350,000 words for publication yearly at the peak of his career, Buckley was never at a loss for what to say or how to say it.”

The Questions Behind Populism

The Questions Behind Populism

Over the course of the 2016 Presidential election, Americans became very familiar with the resurgence of an old “ism”: populism. Elites attempted to revive the word as an accusation, one they hurled at Donald Trump and his supporters as on “the wrong side of history.”

The Dismissed in Revolt

The Dismissed in Revolt

The Great Revolt: Inside the Populist Coalition Reshaping American Politics by Salena Zito and Brad Todd. Crown Forum, 2018. Hardcover, 309 pages, $28. Addison Del Mastro “We as a country cannot just let our fellow Americans be left behind, dismissed because someone...

A Place on the Walls

A Place on the Walls

How a home is decorated communicates the essence of the people living there. Even the briefest of glances can give a visitor insight into the personalities, religion, family ties, perhaps even the political inclinations of the inhabitants.

Reoccupying the City

TO THE POINT: TUESDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1967 Will we presently behold an exodus from the suburbs back to the city? Such a development would do more to save our urban life than could any amount of urban-renewal and model-cities subsidies. It is not impossible. Many...

The Necessity for a General Culture

“What Does Culture Mean?” From America’s British Culture, pp. 1–3 This slim book is a summary account of the culture that the people of the United States have inherited from Britain. Sometimes this is called the Anglo-Saxon culture—although it is not simply English,...

The Auroras of Helen Vendler

The Auroras of Helen Vendler

Helen Vendler’s The Ocean, the Bird, and the Scholar opens with a twelve-page account of her life as a critic, of a life well-lived with strong inner imperatives. At issue is her claim that she is less what a typical scholar is thought to be.

The Cinema of Failure

The Cinema of Failure

Terrence Malick is American cinema’s one Christian artist and he has now reached his most productive years, his Social Security years. His four recent movies, The Tree of Life (2011), To the Wonder (2012),

The Book Gallery

A collection of conversations with Bookman editor Luke C. Sheahan and writers and authors of imagination and erudition.

How to Love What is Permanent
Sarah Reardon on "Love What Lasts: How to Save Your Soul From Mediocrity" by Joshua Gibbs.
@CirceInstitute

Personalism in the Age of AI Grant R. Martsolf on "Personalism for the Twenty-First Century: Essays in Honor of David Walsh" Edited by Thomas W. Holman and Richard Avramenko.
@RLPublisher

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