The University Bookman

Reviewing Books that Build Culture

Watch James Panero of the New Criterion discuss “The Urbanity of Russell Kirk” at the 2025 Gerald Russello Memorial Lecture.

The Urbanity of Russell Kirk

“The urban fabric must also be mended and darned through continuous upkeep. The city is not yours to experiment. From Russell to Russello, our ancestral spirits cast their shadows whether or not we choose to observe the city of god in the cities of men.”

Words from the Hearth

“Each poem maps a path on the journey by sharing the personal and religious experiences of a young woman falling in love, getting married, and then expecting and welcoming children. As a reader who tends to prefer prose to poetry, I appreciate the narrative arc as well as the opportunity to reminisce, through Reardon’s work, on my own similar experiences. Reardon’s writing is intensely religious, elevating the seemingly mundane aspects of home life to a spiritual level. Because it draws such powerful connections, it invites readers to ponder how even the simplest details of their lives can lead to the divine.”

A Knight of the American West

“His new book is an exciting chivalric adventure and romance, while also being a contemporary American novel set in the Southwest USA. Exceptionally well written, its straightforward crafting is an encouragement to the reader who eagerly returns to its pages.”

Coming to Terms with Sherman

“…Glenn Arbery has contemporary America down cold, the more so since the cultural variations between North and South are far from being as marked as they were even fifty years ago.”

Seeing the True Presence

Seeing the True Presence

“…Heschmeyer examines the Eucharist in its Biblical, theological, philosophical, and historical contexts. ‘Sometimes,’ he notes, ‘to increase our understanding, we don’t need new information but a new way of thinking about the information that we already have.’”

Home, Sour Home

Home, Sour Home

“Beckeld finds oikophobia not only in the present-day United States but also across the West and in ancient Greece and Rome, eighteenth-century France, and twentieth-century Great Britain. Oikophobia’s onset is significant because it has weakened the places in which it appeared.”

Lincoln and the Democratic Cause

Lincoln and the Democratic Cause

“Professor Guelzo is prescient… in offering Lincoln’s contemplations on the meaning and purpose of the Civil War, including the possibility that the war was a providential necessity preceding an outcome, emancipation, and largely because race and slavery are central to Lincoln’s history as a great evil, our country’s original sin, and anathema to our democracy. “

JP O’Malley Interviews Author Frank Tallis

JP O’Malley Interviews Author Frank Tallis

“…is it possible to embrace Freud’s core ideas while also remaining critical of him? Tallis believes so. He claims Freud ‘was unquestionably a great writer, but he is often contradictory, and his ideas are generally not original.'”

Finding the Historical Vergil

Finding the Historical Vergil

“Sarah Ruden… takes a step back to remove Vergil from the constraints of later mythmaking and find the historical poet… As Ruden writes, ‘As always, there has to be something about the author himself that is vital to the thing called literary achievement.’”

America First—Or Last?

America First—Or Last?

“Paul Hollander, wherever he is, need not worry. The best book by far on an American romance with foreign dictators has long been–and remains–his Political Pilgrims.

The Soul Always Takes Priority

The Soul Always Takes Priority

“The book is a handbook for a Catholic death written by Nikolas T. Nikas, co-founder and president of the Bioethics Defense Fund, and Bruce W. Green, a former dean and law professor who serves as special counsel to the Bioethics Defense Fund. Presented in a Question and Answer format and split over eight parts, [it] offers answers to 123 questions a curious person might have… The appendices include, among other things, an essay on how to form a working conscience, a glossary, and an example of what a Catholic medical power of attorney might look like—useful for those who might not be able to afford to pay a lawyer to devise one for them. Reading the book is, quite literally, like having two lawyers explain the legal and moral ins and outs of end-of-life care.”

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.

@EvieSolheim By the way, the @KirkCenter takes literature, ethics, character formation, & cultural renewal seriously

Encourage you to participate in our @ubookman academic journal & the fellowship of our literary & academic community, enshrining what Dr. Kirk calls “the Moral Imagination”

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