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.”

Four Acres in Herefordshire

The Running Hare: The Secret Life of Farmland by John Lewis-Stempel. Doubleday, 2016. Hardcover, 298 pages, £16.99. “Really: I just want the birds back.” So concludes the brief preface/apologia of writer-farmer John Lewis-Stempel’s wonderful new book The Running Hare,...

Hitchens: A Look at a Skeptic

The Faith of Christopher Hitchens: The Restless Soul of the World’s Most Notorious Atheist by Larry Alex Taunton. Nelson Books, 2016. Hardcover, 199 pages, $15.Christopher Hitchens (a.k.a. “Hitch”) was a hard-drinking, heavy-smoking writer and public speaker with an...

An American Arcadia Made Accessible

The Brandywine: An Intimate Portrait by W. Barksdale Maynard. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014. Hardcover, 276 pages, $34.95. When an author writes of a place that he or she loves, there is always the danger of slipping into an overly sentimental paean that...

Our Real Constitution—And What Happened to It

Constitutional Morality and the Rise of Quasi-Law By Bruce P. Frohnen and George W. Carey. Harvard University Press, 2016. Hardcover, 293 pages, $45.Conservatism lost a giant when George W. Carey passed away in 2013. Thanks to Bruce Frohnen, his longtime friend, we’re...

Endo and the Challenge of Orthodoxy

Silence: A Novel by Shūsaku Endō, translated by William Johnston. Picador Modern Classics, 2016. Paperback, 212+xxvi pages, $16. When he was a boy, Japanese author Shūsaku Endō (1923–1996) converted to Roman Catholicism. He attended Tokyo’s Keio University after the...

A Guide to the Nightmare Countries

Horror: A Literary History edited by Xavier Aldana Reyes. The British Library, 2016. Hardcover, 232 pages, $30. Although superheroes and adolescent saviors have currently wrested pole position on screens and shelves from even vampires and zombies, horror is no longer...

The Art of Sinking in Poetry

The Billy Collins Experience by A. M. Juster. Kelsay Books, 2016. Paperback, 66 pages, $14. “Like most poets, I don’t know where I’m going.” In a fit of concision, the poet Billy Collins managed to define his aesthetic, and his career. Despite his modesty, he has...

Upcoming Lectures in New York

The University Bookman is joining Fordham University in hosting the award-winning poet and critic A. M. Juster on Monday, February 6, 2017 at 6:00pm on Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus (McMahon Hall, Rm. 109; use the entrance on West 60th Street and Columbus Avenue in...

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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