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.”

Hitchens: A Look at a Skeptic

by Staff | Jan 15, 2017

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

by Staff | Jan 15, 2017

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

by Allen Mendenhall | Jan 8, 2017

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

by Lee Oser | Jan 8, 2017

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

by Staff | Jan 3, 2017

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

by Staff | Jan 1, 2017

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

by Staff | Dec 27, 2016

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...

Summoned to Greatness

by William F. Meehan III | Dec 25, 2016

A Torch Kept Lit: Great Lives of the Twentieth Century by William F. Buckley Jr., edited by James Rosen. Crown Forum, 2016. Hardcover, 336 pages, $22. Reviewed by William F. Meehan IIIWilliam F. Buckley Jr. had published forty-five books by the time his only volume...

Books in Little: Kauffman’s ‘Deplorable’ Americans

by Staff | Dec 22, 2016

America First! Its History, Culture, and Politics by Bill Kauffman. Prometheus Books, 2016. Paperback, 390 pages, $18.In numerous books, and in the pages of The American Conservative, Bill Kauffman continues to develop his unique blend of radical localism and...

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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