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.”

Destroying an ‘Evil Empire’

A Pope and a President: John Paul II, Ronald Reagan, and the Extraordinary Untold Story of the 20th Century by Paul Kengor. ISI Books, 2017. Hardcover, 638 pages, $23.66 The twentieth century was a bloody century characterized by upheaval, loss of lives, and political...

Diana Trilling’s Search for a Hero

The Untold Journey: The Life of Diana Trilling by Natalie Robins. Columbia University Press, 2017. Hardcover, 424 pages, $33.“In the actual conduct of our lives Lionel and I silently accepted the premise that my first responsibility was to my home and family.” So...

Virtue: Can It Be Taught?

by Russell Kirk Are there men and women in America today of virtue sufficient to withstand and repel the forces of disorder? Or have we, as a people, grown too fond of creature-comforts and a fancied security to venture our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor in...

The Illusion of Human Rights

“There exists something even more important than civil liberties: the survival of legitimate governments.”Human rights, some folk tell us, are not fully realized in El Salvador. Other people have discovered, somewhat tardily, that human rights are not altogether...

Prospects for American Education

An address discussing the findings of the Report of the National Commission on Excellence in Education. “There will come about a marked decline of prosperity and of national strength—with no one knowing why, or at least no one daring to explain why.”For more than...

The Surly Sullen Bell

By Russell A. Kirk And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? for the living to the dead? Isaiah VIII:19 Having stared at the river for half an...

The Lost Great Modernist

David Jones: Engraver, Soldier, Painter, Poet by Thomas Dilworth. Jonathan Cape, 2017. Hardcover, 432 pp., $15. T. S. Eliot called his debut poem, In Parenthesis, “a work of genius.” To W. H. Auden, his second epic, The Anathemata, was “the finest long poem...

Liar or Fake, and Other Clarifying Questions

Confessions of a Heretic: Selected Essays by Roger Scruton. Devon: Notting Hill Editions, 2017. Hardcover, 208 pages, $12.89. In “Faking It,” Roger Scruton distinguishes between a liar and a fake; a most topical notion. The liar intends to deceive. The fake, on the...

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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