The University Bookman

Reviewing Books that Build Culture

Support the University Bookman during our annual Kirktober Fundraiser, and receive an audio copy of Kirk’s short story, What Shadows We Pursue.

Kirktober 2025: James Panero and Adam Simon on the Haunted House

October 28, 2025

On Tuesday, October 28, at 6:00 PM, you are invited to join University Bookman editor Luke Sheahan, Hollywood screenwriter Adam Simon, and New Criterion executive editor James Panero, as they explore the theme of the haunted house in gothic literature and its relationship to conservative thought and imagination.

Register for this free webinar here.

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.”

Christopher Dawson and Pluralism

“In particular, I want to examine three aspects of Dawson’s thought: his conclusion that cultures, especially Western culture, historically have been pluralist; his contention that a pluralism of cultures preserves a sphere of freedom from dominant modern ideologies that would eliminate that freedom; and finally, Dawson’s conviction that a pluralist world represents a new opportunity for evangelization.”

Trust and Hope as the Final Words

“Each poem is biblically rooted, but Kohler draws on extra-biblical sources and her own creative imagination to ponder what her characters may have been thinking during the pivotal moments of their mostly undocumented lives. The result is a beautiful exploration into the hearts and minds of the women of the Bible—both named and unnamed—that leaves readers feeling as though the women are imminently present, sharing their innermost thoughts and the overlooked aspects of their experiences.”

The Other Greek Woman

“Felson’s Penelope, who seems, in all probability, very close to Homer’s Penelope, is the faithful wife of Odysseus, but she is also the independent and flirtatious matriarch who rules over her household and teases the suitors, whom she views as her ‘geese.’”

The Whig Theory of Christianity

Inventing the Individual: The Origins of Western Liberalism by Larry Siedentop. Belknap/Harvard University Press, 2014. Hardcover, 448 pages, $35. In its basic assumptions, liberal thought is the offspring of Christianity. It emerged as the moral institutions...

Virgil Through the Centuries

The Last Trojan Hero: A Cultural History of Virgil’s Aeneid, by Philip Hardie. I.B. Tauris, 2014, 256 pp., $35.Virgil’s Aeneid, the Roman national epic that recounts the mythic origins of the Eternal City, is among the most influential and widely read books in...

Spring Newsletter

The latest number of the Russell Kirk Center newsletter (Spring 2015) has just been posted. It features news on the recent Edmund Burke Society conference and other recent visitors and scholars at the Kirk Center. You can download it, and past issues, here.

What We’re Reading (Summer 2015)

From Waterloo to Palomar, from children’s fiction to philosophy, our contributors and friends again provide their summer reading lists. Eve Tushnet I hope to spend this summer soaking up the sun with Los Bros. Hernandez’s epic comic book series “Love and Rockets.” The...

Norman Mailer and the End of Journalism

Judge compares Norman Mailer, a leading light in the New Journalism, to his successors today. Beyond mere bias is a deeper reason for the decline of journalism: the end of journalistic boot camp.

The Holiness of Hobbitry

Tolkien’s Sacramental Vision: Discerning the Holy in Middle-earth by Craig Bernthal. Angelico Press, 2014. Paperback, 316 pages, $17. In 1999, Joseph Pearce lamented that J. R. R. Tolkien “is not generally perceived to be one of the key protagonists of the Catholic...

A Conservative Manifesto for Europe

A Conservative Manifesto for Europe

Zeitgeist & Headwinds: A Conservative Manifesto [Original German: Zeitgeist und Gegenwind—Ein konservatives Manifest] by Florian Stumfall. Hemau, Germany: Tangrintler Medienhaus, 2011. Hardcover, 243 pages, €25.Florian Stumfall is a seasoned Christian German...

On Cocktail Time

In 1958, P. G. Wodehouse published Cocktail Time, one of his “Uncle Fred books.” Bertram Wilberforce Wooster does not appear in this book, nor does Jeeves, but Bertie’s friend “Pongo” Twistleton does, as well as a butler by the name of Albert Peasemarch. Pongo’s Uncle...

Unequal Victors

JP O’Malley interviews Michael Neiberg about his new book on the 1945 Potsdam Conference that helped shape the postwar world.

The Book Gallery

A collection of conversations with Bookman editor Luke C. Sheahan and writers and authors of imagination and erudition.

There's still time to sign up to join the @KirkCenter for the McLellan Prizes Gala in DC on November 19 https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/ticketing/2025-mclellan-prizes

In honor of longtime @ubookman editor Gerald J. Russello, enjoy this Russello Classic, "Christopher Dawson and Pluralism."

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