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.

How Charlotte Brontë Became Charlotte Brontë

“Graham Watson’s biography of Charlotte is a judiciously researched and well-written overview of the final years of Charlotte’s life… readers will learn just how central Charlotte was to the literary establishment that both praised and scorned her.”

C.S. Lewis and Gender Ideology

“…[Herring] hopes that his exploration of Lewis’ work will inspire and equip Christian readers to understand and respond to our culture’s gender confusion.”

The Case for the Messiah

“…Catholic Answers apologist Jimmy Akin… explores the ancient Jewish idea of the Messiah, along with the historical evidence for Christ, arguing that Jesus is indeed the anointed one foretold in the Old Testament.”

De Animali Ambulante

On Looking: A Walker’s Guide to the Art of Observation by Alexandra Horowitz. New York: Scribner 2011. Paperback, 320 pages, $16.“We walk the same block as dogs yet see different things. We walk alongside rats though each of us lives in the dusk of the other. We walk...

An Adaptable Conservative

Germaine de Staël: A Political Portrait by Biancamaria Fontana. Princeton UP, 2016. Hardcover, 296 pages, $35.“You want to repeal Obamacare? I thought you believed in, you know, conserving things.” “I just want to make marriage more relevant to twenty-first-century...

Testimony to a Catholic Existentialist

Testimony to a Catholic Existentialist

Renée Radell: Web of Circumstance by Eleanor Heartney. Predmore Press, 2016. Hardcover, 220 pages, $80. When I was an undergraduate student I had the privilege of working as an assistant to the founder of this journal, Russell Kirk. One of my tasks was helping him to...

Strange Thing: How Camus Wrote ‘The Stranger’

Looking for The Stranger: Albert Camus and the Life of a Literary Classic by Alice Kaplan. University of Chicago Press, 2016. Hardcover, 288 pages, $26. The French philosopher Gabriel Marcel wrote in The Philosophy of Existentialism that Jean-Paul “Sartre’s world is...

Books in Little: End of an Era

This Gulf of Fire: The Great Lisbon Earthquake, or Apocalypse in the Age of Science and Reason by Mark Molesky. Alfred A. Knopf, 2015. Hardcover, 512 pages, $35. Despite its status as one of history’s most powerful tremors, the Lisbon Earthquake of 1755 has barely...

Glimpses of a Great Light

Ronald Knox: A Man for All Seasons edited by Francesca Bugliani Knox. PIMS, 2016. Hardcover, 416 pages, $65.Jesus said only a fool would light a candle and proceed to hide it under a bowl. Yet time, even more than neglect or abuse, has a way of snuffing out even the...

A Splendid Retelling

Never Surrender: Winston Churchill and Britain’s Decision to Fight Nazi Germany in the Fateful Summer of 1940 by John Kelly. Scribner, 2015. Hardcover, 384 pages, $30.Winston Churchill believed that fate had placed him at the head of Britain’s government at its hour...

Reclaiming the ‘Higher’ in Higher Education

American Heresies and Higher Education by Peter Augustine Lawler. St. Augustine’s Press, 2016. Paperback, 224 pages, $20.Any appreciator of permanent and higher things who has gone to the university has very likely encountered the ugliness of political correctness,...

On Not Conserving Liberalism

Conserving America?: Essays on Present Discontents by Patrick J. Deneen. St. Augustines Press, 2016. Paper, 192 pages, $19.The title of the book—Conserving America?—tells us much of what we need to know about Deneen’s thesis. For much of conservative intellectual...

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.

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