The University Bookman

Reviewing Books that Build Culture

Support the University Bookman during our annual Kirktober Fundraiser, and receive an audio copy of Kirk’s short story, What Shadows We Pursue.

Kirktober 2025: James Panero and Adam Simon on the Haunted House

October 28, 2025

On Tuesday, October 28, at 6:00 PM, you are invited to join University Bookman editor Luke Sheahan, Hollywood screenwriter Adam Simon, and New Criterion executive editor James Panero, as they explore the theme of the haunted house in gothic literature and its relationship to conservative thought and imagination.

Register for this free webinar here.

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.”

Christopher Dawson and Pluralism

“In particular, I want to examine three aspects of Dawson’s thought: his conclusion that cultures, especially Western culture, historically have been pluralist; his contention that a pluralism of cultures preserves a sphere of freedom from dominant modern ideologies that would eliminate that freedom; and finally, Dawson’s conviction that a pluralist world represents a new opportunity for evangelization.”

Trust and Hope as the Final Words

“Each poem is biblically rooted, but Kohler draws on extra-biblical sources and her own creative imagination to ponder what her characters may have been thinking during the pivotal moments of their mostly undocumented lives. The result is a beautiful exploration into the hearts and minds of the women of the Bible—both named and unnamed—that leaves readers feeling as though the women are imminently present, sharing their innermost thoughts and the overlooked aspects of their experiences.”

The Other Greek Woman

“Felson’s Penelope, who seems, in all probability, very close to Homer’s Penelope, is the faithful wife of Odysseus, but she is also the independent and flirtatious matriarch who rules over her household and teases the suitors, whom she views as her ‘geese.’”

The Whole Truth

How to Be a Conservative by Roger Scruton. London: Bloomsbury, 2014. Hardcover, ix + 195 pages, $20.50.One of Roger Scruton’s mentors, T. S. Eliot, frequently observed that heresies are usually half-truths. As Eliot says in The Idea of a Christian Society,...

The Real, Imagined

Rewiring the Real: In Conversation with William Gaddis, Richard Powers, Mark Danielewski, and Don DeLillo by Mark C. Taylor. Columbia University Press, 2013. Hardcover, 344 pages, $26.There is a phrase in Latin—“Laudator temporis acti,” which when translated into...

Ex Tenebris

One of Russell Kirk’s most celebrated “ghostly tales,” this short story is sure to enthrall and, ironically, enlighten.Then shall it be too late to knock when the door shall be shut; and too late to cry for mercy when it is the time of justice. O terrible voice of the...

A Cautionary Note on the Ghostly Tale

Since most modern men have ceased to recognize their own souls, the spectral tale has been out of fashion, especially in America. As Cardinal Manning said, all differences of opinion are theological at bottom; and this fact has its bearing upon literary tastes....

The Two Hoovers

Herbert Hoover in the White House: The Ordeal of the Presidency by Charles Rappleye. Simon and Schuster, 2016. Hardcover, 551 pages, $32.50. The title and subtitle of this book do—and do not—accurately advertise what it contains. Something a good deal less than a full...

From Hungary to the Outback

From Hungary to the Outback

Flight from the Brothers Grimm: A European-Australian Memoir by Valerie Murray. Sydney: Books Unleashed, 2016. Paperback, 184 pages, Aust.$20. “Only when one has lost all curiosity about the future,” wrote Evelyn Waugh in his autobiography, A Little Learning (1964),...

A Life Told by a Critic

William Faulkner: A Life through Novels by André Bleikasten, translated by Miriam Watchorn with the collaboration of Roger Little. Indiana University Press, 2017. Hardcover, 511 pages, $50.In his Foreword to William Faulkner: A Life through Novels, Philip Weinstein...

A Window on a Vanishing World

Comrade Baron: A Journey through the Vanishing World of the Transylvanian Aristocracy by Jaap Scholten. Helena History Press, 2016. Paperback, 404 pages, $24.I started reading this book filled both with excitement and dread. The former because I am Transylvanian, the...

American Chesterton Society Conference

We commend to our friends the upcoming conference of the American Chesterton Society, to be held this year in Colorado Springs from July 27–29. Fr. James V. Schall is among this year's presenters.

The Book Gallery

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

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