The University Bookman

Reviewing Books that Build Culture

What the American Revolution Secured: Order, Justice, and Freedom

Throughout the semiquincentennial year celebrating America’s independence, The University Bookman will invite a range of writers and speakers to contribute to a series drawing upon Russell Kirk’s work on the American Revolution and the constitutional order it secured.

How Charlotte Brontë Became Charlotte Brontë

“Graham Watson’s biography of Charlotte is a judiciously researched and well-written overview of the final years of Charlotte’s life… readers will learn just how central Charlotte was to the literary establishment that both praised and scorned her.”

C.S. Lewis and Gender Ideology

“…[Herring] hopes that his exploration of Lewis’ work will inspire and equip Christian readers to understand and respond to our culture’s gender confusion.”

The Case for the Messiah

“…Catholic Answers apologist Jimmy Akin… explores the ancient Jewish idea of the Messiah, along with the historical evidence for Christ, arguing that Jesus is indeed the anointed one foretold in the Old Testament.”

Permanence, Tradition, and Memory

Essays on Modernity: And the Permanent Things from Tradition by James A. Patrick, Introduced by Thomas Howard, Edited by B. R. Mullikin. Fort Worth: Tower Press Books, 2015. Hardcover, paperback, Kindle, 190 pages. If you’ve ever had the pleasure of attending one of...

Writings after Empire

JP O’Malley interviews translator Michael Hofmann about the émigré novelist Joseph Roth and Roth’s thoughts on conservatism, place, and life after the end of empire.

The Flowering of Legal Cynicism

More than one commentator has noted that the majority decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, requiring states to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, actually was decades in the making. No-fault divorce and our culture of sexual promiscuity, separating sex and even...

Et in Academia, Ego

Bradstreet Gate: A Novel by Robin Kirman. Crown, 2015. Hardcover, 320 pages, $26.Death and defeat haunt the college novel. College novels—whether they focus on students or professors—typically tell a story in which the shining promises of academia prove not only false...

Chaos and Choices

An interview with C. A. HigginsThe Bookman recently spoke with C. A. Higgins, author of the science fiction novel Lightless, which is being released by Del Rey at the end of September 2015. Ms. Higgins holds an undergraduate degree in physics from Cornell and now...

On Not Being Boring

Acedia and its Discontents: Metaphysical Boredom in an Empire of Desire by R. J. Snell. Angelico Press, 2015. Paperback, 144 pages, $15.R. J. Snell has written a substantial and illuminating book, using the ancient concept of the vice of acedia (spiritual or...

Re-introducing Japan’s Conservatives

Japan’s Love-Hate Relationship with the West by Hirakawa Sukehiro. Global Oriental (Kent, UK), 2005. Hardcover, 400 pages, $90. Conservatives are often portrayed as an insular lot. Blinded by tradition and preternaturally bigoted in constitution, so goes the standard...

‘Et tu, Brute?’

Julius Caesar was killed on the famous Ides of March, the fifteenth of that month, 44 B.C. The murder took place in the Senate, then meeting in the Theater of Pompey. Caesar had acquired dictatorial powers. Technically, the office of “dictator” was a legal one. It was...

Complicating the Nixon Story

The President and the Apprentice: Eisenhower and Nixon, 1952–1961 by Irwin F. Gellman. Yale University Press, 2015. Hardcover, 791 pages, $40.The historical demonization of Richard Nixon usually proceeds from his supposedly red-baiting campaigns for the House and...

The Book Gallery

A collection of conversations with Bookman editor Luke C. Sheahan and writers and authors of imagination and erudition. Click on the icon in the upper right corner of the video to see more episodes in this series or check out our YouTube page.

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