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.”

Dinner with Aristotle

The Virtues of the Table: How to Eat and Think, by Julian Baggini. Granta Books, 2014. Paper, 280 pages, $14. There are few areas of life as difficult to navigate or moderate as eating. It’s necessary for existence—one of the most primal acts in which we partake. And...

Is the Use of Religious Rhetoric by Presidents Effective?

God Wills It: Presidents and the Political Use of Religion by David O’Connell. Transaction, 2014. Hardcover, 452 pp., $54.95.David O’Connell’s God Wills It: Presidents and the Political Use of Religion is a thoughtful, engaging, but ultimately unconvincing examination...

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 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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