The University Bookman
Reviewing Books that Build Culture

A new issue of Studies in Burke and His Time
The Edmund Burke Society of America announces a new issue of their journal, Studies in Burke and His Time, Volume 24. The issue features articles on Burke’s identity, and also includes a report on the 2015 conference on Burke held at Villanova University. Articles...
Four Federal Judges Celebrating Poetry at Poets House
Poets and critics oftencomplain that most contemporary American verse is beautiful but pointless. It is introspective, limited to the poet’s experiences or lack thereof, sometimes shrill, at times unintelligible. On Tuesday, October 20, 2015, four U.S. federal judges...
Pierre Manent’s Common Political Science
Seeing Things Politically: Interviews with Benedicte Delorme-Montini by Pierre Manent. St. Augustine’s Press, 2015. Hardcover, 240 pages, $30. “Thomists have moralized and depoliticized Aristotle,” French Catholic philosopher Pierre Manent charges in his book,...
Risking Literature in the Obama Era
Bearings and Distances by Glenn Arbery. Wiseblood Books, 2015. Paperback, 335 pages, $13.To those who desire to think the same way others think, who long to crush dissent and to be on the right side of history, real literature is an oddity, an affront, the relic of an...
Fighting Cousins
Yanks and Limeys: Alliance Warfare in the Second World War. by Niall Barr. London: Jonathan Cape, 2015. Hardcover, 548 pages, $30. Reviewed by John P. Rossi It is generally agreed that World War II was a victory of Russian numbers and American industrial output. True...
The Uncozy Christie
A reflection on the underestimated Dame Agatha Christie at 125. Eve Tushnet Agatha Christie’s name is practically synonymous with comfort reading. Her publishers used to promise readers “a Christie for Christmas,” and her works are the inspiration for the mystery...
The Deauthorised Life of Ted Hughes
Ted Hughes: The Unauthorised Life by Jonathan Bate. Harper, 2015. Hardcover, 672 pages, $40.Every biography has a backstory involving how a biographer turns to a certain subject, what other biographies have been written, what sources are new or used differently....
Bradbury the Realist
Ray Bradbury by David Seed. Illinois University Press (Modern Masters of Science Fiction), 2015. Paperback, 207 pages, $24.Anything Martian is currently newsworthy—made so by NASA’s announcement that liquid water exists on the surface of the Red Planet, by various...
Are We a Nation of Heretics?
Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics by Ross Douthat. The Free Press, 2012 (2013). Paperback, 352 pages, $17. A few years ago, Ross Douthat, who has assumed the mantle of the conservative columnist at The New York Times, published Bad Religion: How We...
The Book Gallery
A collection of conversations with Bookman editor Luke C. Sheahan and writers and authors of imagination and erudition.