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.

William F. Buckley Jr.: Literary Figure 

“…the American public intellectual might best be appreciated as a literary figure. Producing about 350,000 words for publication yearly at the peak of his career, Buckley was never at a loss for what to say or how to say it.”

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.”

Revisiting Walter Lippmann

“Lippmann sought to be—and was—what might be described today as an influencer. As such, he never sought to wield power, but he long desired to have the ears and eyes of the powerful. Arnold-Forster is certainly not unaware of that. But it is never his central message. If there is such a message in these pages, and there is, it is his effort to make the reader aware that Walter Lippmann, believer in and defender of the efficacy of progressive government, was also Walter Lippmann, believer in and defender of both the reality and importance of empire in general and of the American empire in particular.”

Family Homes and Drive-in Churches

“After the optimism of the suburban boom, it all went bust. Mass attendance fell by 70 percent. Women’s religious life died out. Parochial education was crippled… The green grass of suburbia was starved into a desiccated, brown waste.”

William F. Buckley Jr.: Literary Figure 

“…the American public intellectual might best be appreciated as a literary figure. Producing about 350,000 words for publication yearly at the peak of his career, Buckley was never at a loss for what to say or how to say it.”

Children on the Menu

The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm: The Complete First Edition by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, translated and edited by Jack Zipes. Princeton University Press, 2014. Hardcover, 568 pages, $35.Jack Zipes, retired professor of German at the University...

The Bookman at Its Best

Dear Friends, This has been a wonderful year for the Bookman and our circle of friends, writers, and supporters. The Bookman published over a hundred reviews, essays, interviews, and symposia in 2014. Among them we would note the symposia we held on James Poulos’s...

Congratulations, Caleb!

Congratulations to Bookman contributor Caleb Stegall, who was selected for a seat on the Kansas Supreme Court. We wish him all the best.

In Search of Community

Community and Tradition: Conservative Perspectives on the American Experience, edited by George W. Carey and Bruce Frohnen. Rowman & Littlefield, 1998. Paper, 216pp., $23.This is a valuable and timely book, and a welcome reminder that the conservative mind is...

The Marxist Jeremiah

Culture and the Death of God by Terry Eagleton. Yale University Press, 2014. Hardcover, 234 pages, $26.There are few polemicists writing in the English language today as erudite, or as pugnacious, as Terry Eagleton. Nor are there many public intellectuals who so defy...

Fiction and Philosophy

On Moral Fiction, by John Gardner. Basic Books, 1977. When you make up a story about America and say that we are the worst killers of all, that we are worse than Russia or China, then . . . well, I think you’ve made up an evil story.” That evaluation of the integrity...

Science Fiction Worth Re-Reading?

What Makes This Book so Great: Re-Reading the Classics of Science Fiction and Fantasy by Jo Walton. Tor, 2014. Hardcover, 447 pages, $27.Insofar as “genre” means commercial formula-fiction, it is safe to say that between the late nineteenth century, when the formulas...

An Echo from the Cold War

The Nazis Next Door: How America Became A Safe Haven For Hitler’s Men by Eric Lichtblau. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2014. Hardcover, 231 pages (plus acknowledgments, notes, and index), $28. Write a nonfiction history to read like a novel—offering suspense, interesting...

Kirk in the Clarion Review

Russell Kirk’s autobiographical essay, “Is Life Worth Living” is featured in The Clarion Review this month.

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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