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.’”

I Would Kill for the Thrill of First Love

Marta Oulie by Sigrid Undset, translated by Tiina Nunnally, with an introduction by Jane Smiley. University of Minnesota Press, 2014. Paperback, 128 pages, $16. Marta Oulie opens with the confession, “I have been unfaithful to my husband.” So it comes as no surprise...

Lives of the Saints

The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution by Walter Isaacson. Simon & Schuster, 2014. Hardcover, 543 pages, $35. The Innovators is Walter Isaacson’s story of the scientists, engineers, programmers, and entrepreneurs...

Harry V. Jaffa, RIP

Harry V. Jaffa (October 7, 1918–January 10, 2015) died at the beginning of the 150th anniversary year of the end of the Civil War. He was one of the great scholars, perhaps the greatest, on Abraham Lincoln, the Civil War, andthe American Founding. So there is...

That Was in Another Country

Hoover’s FBI and the Fourth Estate: The Campaign to Control the Press and the Bureau’s Image by Matthew Cecil. University of Kansas Press, 2014. Hardcover, 368 pages, $35.Reviewed by R. J. StoveThe largely ignored death in South Carolina, in March 2013, of...

Fall Permanent Things

The Fall 2014 number of our Permanent Things newsletter is now posted, featuring updates on “Arguing Conservatism,” an ISI honors seminar on rhetoric held at Piety Hill. You can download a copy of the PDF from this link.

The Remaining Western Illusion

Lies, Passions and Illusions: The Democratic Imagination in the Twentieth Century by François Furet. Chicago University Press, 2014. Hardcover, 128 pages, $20.By his own admission François Furet was a Tocquevillian. The label is important and elusive and, for a...

Walter Berns, RIP

Walter Berns, the great constitutional scholar and political theorist, passed away on Saturday, January 10, 2015 at the age of 95. Throughout his long and distinguished career as a scholar and pubic intellectual, a career that included teaching posts at Cornell, Yale,...

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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