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.

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.”

How to Love What is Permanent

“Throughout the book, Gibbs pleads with his readers that we not only think of the soul in terms of salvation but also in terms of health. Good taste won’t save one’s soul. But it will nourish the soul and incline the soul towards virtue much more than the bad taste we will acquire from mediocre things.”

Personalism in the Age of AI

“Personalism is a philosophical movement that places the human person at the center of inquiry, affirming the inherent dignity, value, and uniqueness of each individual. While it spans both religious and secular traditions, its common thread is a commitment to defending the irreducible reality of the person in an age increasingly shaped by systems, technologies, and abstractions.”

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.”

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.

Why Secular Liberalism Isn’t Liberal

John Gray, René Girard, and the return of tribal religionI stuck around St. Petersburg When I saw it was a time for a change Killed the czar and his ministers Anastasia screamed in vain … Pleased to meet you Hope you guess my name, oh yeah Ah, what’s puzzling you Is...

L’Engle’s Conservatism

A newly discovered section of Madeleine L’Engle’s classic A Wrinkle in Time (1963), which was excised before the book’s publication, makes clear the author’s classically conservative vision of political and social order. The passages have to do with the origins of...

A Lively Half-Life

The Remarkable Education of John Quincy Adams by Phyllis Lee Levin. Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. Hardcover, 544 pages, $35. “This, in essence, is the dilemma of John Quincy’s life. Respecting him as a statesman, as ‘Old Man Eloquent’ was one thing. Liking him was...

Catholic Principles, American Law

American Law from a Catholic Perspective: Through a Clearer Lens Edited by Ronard J. Rychlak. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2015. Hardcover, 326 pages, $85. The contributors to American Law from a Catholic Perspective are well acquainted with the nuance and...

ISI video draws on Kirk’s thought

The Intercollegiate Review has published a short video with Robert Reilly that was shot at Mecosta last summer. In it, Bob Reilly draws on Russell Kirk’s The Roots of American Order to explain why “America is older than you think.” The video is just two minutes long,...

Five Girls, Two Nations, One Historical Imagination

Daughters of the Samurai: A Journey from East to West and Back by Janice P. Nimura. W. W. Norton, 2015. Hardcover, 352 pages, $28.Two days before Christmas, 1871, a delegation of Japanese pioneers left the port of Yokohama on the paddlewheel steamship SS America,...

An Unfinished Memoir

Intrepid Woman: Betty Lussier’s Secret War, 1942–1945 by Betty Lussier. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2010. Hardcover, 240 pages, $35.Betty Lussier was born in Canada but raised on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Her father, born in the U.S. but a Canadian citizen,...

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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