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.”

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,...

A Gentleman of Letters

Selected Letters of Norman Mailer Edited by J. Michael Lennon. Random House, 2014. Hardcover, 867 pages, $40. By any measure, Norman Mailer (1923–2007) is one of the most important writers of post-World War II America. Over seven decades, he produced powerful and...

On Looking for What We Have Been Given

“Giving one Catholicism, God deprives one of the pleasure of looking for it, but here again He has shown His mercy for such a one as myself … who, if it had not been given, would not have looked.” —Flannery O’Connor, September 24, 1947. A former student of mine from...

Fruits of Procrastination

One Hundred Letters from Hugh Trevor-Roper Edited by Richard Davenport-Hines and Adam Sisman. Oxford University Press, 2014. Hardcover, 488 pages, $40. Seemingly out of fashion in the internet age, letters have been an important literary genre since the days of St....

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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