The University Bookman

Reviewing Books that Build Culture

What the American Revolution Secured: Order, Justice, and Freedom

Throughout the semiquincentennial year celebrating America’s independence, The University Bookman will invite a range of writers and speakers to contribute to a series drawing upon Russell Kirk’s work on the American Revolution and the constitutional order it secured.

To Find Eyes to See

“Hren selects earnest classics that have stood the test of time—books that generations of readers have found edifying and moving. But also, in the introduction and conclusion alike, Hren returns to another key point of fiction: it doesn’t just help us see extraordinary truth, although it can. More important is that fiction gives us eyes to see the transcendence of ordinary lives, including our own.”

Rural America as It Really Is

“Harold Bell Wright, regardless of how literary tastemakers viewed him in the 1920s, is the central figure in the origin of Branson. Though denigrated by the Baldwins and H. L. Menckens of his day, Wright was one of the century’s best-selling novelists.”

The Poet Watches Birds

“Jennifer A. Hartenburg’s debut collection of poems… offers such a poetic practice of waking, attending, and caring. These are poems rich with the life of the world, flocking with birds and bees both literal and metaphorical, but also closely attentive to the quiddities of language and the motions of the soul.”

Discipline and Desire

Some Permanent Things by James Matthew Wilson. Wiseblood Books, 2014. Paperback, 156 pages, $16.50. James Matthew Wilson’s first full-length poetry collection explores how we might rediscover “permanent things” in a time of distraction, disruption, and disposability....

Shining a Light on Dark Deeds

The Moral Imagination in the Mystery Novels of Sally Wright by Ashlee Cowles When it comes to fictional works of the moral imagination, fantasy novels tend to receive the most attention from critics who believe literature plays a vital role in the conservation of the...

’Tis the season!

No, not that season. All Hallows’ Eve approaches—a perfect time to read or re-read one of Russell Kirk’s Ghostly Tales. We recently posted The Surly Sullen Bell (along with Ex Tenebris) here, and there are more stories, links, and commentary linked at Ghostly...

Virgil, Guide to the Perplexed

The Aeneid by Virgil, translated by David Ferry. University of Chicago Press, 2017. Hardcover, 437 pages, $35.C. S. Lewis once said of Virgil’s Aeneid that “No man who has once read it with full perception remains an adolescent.” That was certainly true of my first...

Lectures on What Can’t Be Taught

Literature Class by Julio Cortázar. New Directions, 2017. Paperback, 280 pages, $19. The question of whether or not creative writing is something that can be taught isn’t a perennial one, at least not explicitly or directly. The American MFA program, with its tens of...

Mark Twain, Huckster

How Not to Get Rich: The Financial Misadventures of Mark Twain by Alan Pell Crawford. Houghton Mifflin, 2017. Hardcover, 240 pages, $27.How Not to Get Rich: I could write a book on that subject! Happily, Alan Pell Crawford, author mostly recently of the thoughtful and...

Organizing Victory

Stanton: Lincoln’s War Secretary by Walter Stahr. Simon & Schuster, 2017. Hardcover, 768 pages, $35. Reviewed by Kyle Sammin The Civil War is often remembered from the point of view of the soldiers. Their stories of strategic genius and individual heroism on both...

Budziszewski Lecture in Grand Rapids

The Society for Law and Culture is joining with the Christian Legal Society in sponsoring a lecture by J. Budziszewski titled “Natural Law: Why and So What?” The event will be held at Cooley Law School in Grand Rapids, MI, on Thursday, November 2, 2017, beginning at...

Which Alexander?

The First European: A History of Alexander in the Age of Empire by Pierre Briant, Translated by Nicholas Elliott. Harvard University Press, 2017. Hardcover, 496 pages, $35. After Alexander the Great died, a wilderness of legends about the boy-conqueror flourished. In...

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.

Register for our next book gallery on June 22, 2026:
Russell Kirk On America: How to Understand the Legacy of 1776

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