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.’”

Educational Reform: Back to the Future

Living on the Future Edge: Windows on Tomorrow: The Impact of Global Exponential Trends on Education in the 21st Century By Ted McCain, Ian Jukes, and Lee Crockett. Corwin, 2010. Paperback, 184 pages, $33. The scope and force of informational and communicative...

Dueling Visions

Freedom and Virtue: The Conservative/Libertarian Debate, edited by George W Carey. ISI Books, 1998, Cloth, xxii + 231 pp., $25. “Freedom is a great thing, but one should not run the danger of destroying oneself in the pursuit of it,” the libertarian philosopher John...

Propping Up Pretensions

Susan Sontag: A Biography by Daniel Schreiber, translated by David Dollenmayer. Northwestern University Press, 2014. Hardcover, 296 pages, $36.“Susan Sontag, as F. R. Leavis said of the Sitwells, belongs less to the history of literature than to that of publicity.”...

A New Look at George Orwell

George Orwell: English Rebel by Robert Colls. Oxford University Press, 2013. Hardcover, 330 pages, $34.95. Reviewed by John P. Rossi This is a curious book. It is not a traditional biography. Nor is it an intellectual biography. Instead it is an attempt, through a...

Speaking Up About a Silent Revolution

Silent Revolution: How the Left Rose to Political Power and Cultural Dominance by Barry Rubin. Broadside Books, 2014. Hardcover, 330 pages, $26.When a friend of mine, who follows politics very carefully, but usually by reading journals and magazines, came across a...

Catholic Social Teaching and Contemporary Social Problems

An interview with Edward T. MechmannEd Mechmann graciously agreed to sit down for an interview with the University Bookman. Mr. Mechmann, a Harvard educated lawyer and former prosecutor, is director of public policy for the Catholic Archdiocese of New York and...

Diagnosing the Immodest Republic

The Culture of Immodesty in American Life and Politics: The Modest Republic, edited by Michael P. Federici, Richard M. Gamble, and Mark T. Mitchell. Palgrave MacMillan, 2013. Hardcover, 236 pages, $95. Reviewed by Gracy Olmstead In times past, the word “modesty” spoke...

The Pink Police State and Risk

James Poulos, whom the Bookman interviewed in 2009 about “postmodern conservatism,” recently wrote a series of pieces for The Federalist on what he describes as the “pink police state,” a kind of totalitarian regime that neither contemporary liberalism nor...

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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