The University Bookman
Reviewing Books that Build Culture
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Each week the Bookman brings you fresh reviews of the books that build culture, and essays that enliven the Permanent Things. Last year nearly 90,000 visitors engaged with the Bookman’s reviews, all free of charge and with no advertising to disrupt the reading experience. Our writers are touching hearts and minds across the globe with their reviews, bringing wisdom, creativity, and beauty to bear on the most important conversations happening in literature and culture.
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If just 1 in 4 of our readers contributed $10, we’d dramatically increase our capacity to recruit the brightest young writers and tackle more books and topics, all with a Kirkian angle. We’ve set a goal of raising $20k this month in order to continue our mission. Exceeding this amount will allow us to expand our work even more.
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With gratitude,
Luke Sheahan, Ph.D., editor
The University Bookman
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Campaign Progress
Making It Home
“The perils and wonders of the journey home pervade Bilbro’s entire collection, through a variety of verse forms and subjects, many of which are seemingly mundane, as in ‘Listening to the Iliad while Raking Leaves…'”
Aging White Male Future Shock: The Contemporary Relevance of a Sociological Classic
“’Future Shock?’ I use that phrase to characterize what I have observed as the predicament—or (as they might view it) the ‘plight’—of aging white males who are buffeted by a host of new developments, ranging from the #MeToo and Black Lives Matters movements to revolutionary technologies of the digital world, that have confused or even paralyzed them.”
The Intrinsic Argument for Free Speech
“Core to Turley’s argument is that free speech is justified in the natural law—by which he means modern natural law. Free speech must attach to any coherent understanding of individual rights. In this, Turley is solidly in the liberal tradition. But his argument goes further, drawing from a more nuanced understanding of the person than we often regrettably find in liberal philosophy.”
Sister Mariella Gable: Pioneer and Prophet
“Nelson’s point, then, is that Catholic writers are issued no exemptions for their piety… but must instead be held to the highest standards of quality, craftsmanship, and excellence.”
The Visionary Stigmatists and the Hope of Mercy
“…Kengor proceeds in his history of key stigmatists through Christian history, looking at the medieval stigmatists of renown including Saint Francis of Assisi and Saint Catherine of Sienna, to more modern stigmatists of the past century including Saint Padre Pio and Saint Faustina.”
Challenging the Contraceptive Mind
“…philosophy underlies her work and makes itself evident throughout. Though she applies economic terms to her findings about childbearing—with language of costs and benefits—and draws conclusions about economics and policy, Pakaluk is fundamentally making, alongside her subjects, a philosophical argument about the value of human life. Together with the women of her sample, Pakaluk maintains that children are blessings worth living and dying for, and that having one more child is always a blessing.”
Motherhood in an Age of Childlessness
“Pakaluk posits that her interviews revealed a startling thesis: a supernatural outlook, whereby self-sacrifice is assessed as gain, is perhaps the only way nowadays that most college-educated women are ever going to regard the benefits of large families as greater than the costs. “
The Conservative Resurgence
“Milikh begins his introductory essay by straightforwardly asserting that the goal of the book ‘is to correct the trajectory of the Right after several generations of political losses, moral delusions, and intellectual errors.'”
Religious Illiberalism and the American Order
“Copulsky’s work can only be described as the definitive history of religious illiberalism to the American order.”
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.
Kirk saw poetry, fiction, tradition, and restraint as essential to understanding America and preserving its character. In his review of "On America," @cjscalia explores Kirk’s vision of the founding, statesmanship, literature, and the enduring ideas that have shaped the republic.
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