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.”

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.”

Reality Check for Politics

“…Lawrence Mead throws tact out the window and, instead, lays bare our collective failure to properly and honestly address myriad social changes that have occurred since the 1960s—namely, widening cultural difference and group balkanization; unprecedented levels of immigration from the non-West; and the rise of identitarianism, especially from the social justice-Left.”

How to Love What is Permanent

“Throughout the book, Gibbs pleads with his readers that we not only think of the soul in terms of salvation but also in terms of health. Good taste won’t save one’s soul. But it will nourish the soul and incline the soul towards virtue much more than the bad taste we will acquire from mediocre things.”

In Memoriam: Richard Durant

An ObituaryRichard Durant, a captain in the U.S. Army in World War II; an investment advisor; a leader in local, state, and national Republican Party activities for more than twenty years; a lawyer late in life; an avid reader; a father of four; grandfather of seven;...

What Everybody Can Enjoy

What Everybody Can Enjoy

On Essays and LettersRecently, a former student, Nicholas Wheeler, knowing my proclivities, gave me Volume CLXXII of “The World’s Classics.” The title of this particular volume is A Book of English Essays (1600-1900). The essays were selected by Stanley V. Makower and...

History’s Story

History’s Story

A History of Histories: Epics, Chronicles, Romances and Inquiries from Herodotus and Thucydides to the Twentieth Century by John Burrow Random House (New York) 540 pp., $35.00 cloth, 2007 The past may be another country, as a cliché holds, but it nonetheless remains...

The Prince Redeemed

The Prince of Darkness: 50 Years Reporting in Washington by Robert Novak. Crown Forum (New York) 662 pp., $29.95 cloth, 2007 If Hollywood is home to “kiss and tell” memoirs, should Washington be the source of the “kiss up and tell” variety? Not if you’re the...

Rhyming the Right

The Conservative Poets: A Contemporary Anthology Edited by William Baer. University of Evansville Press (Evansville, Ind.) 182 pp., $20.00 cloth, 2006.When you put fifteen important poets (most of them teachers and prolific publishers of poetry, prose, and criticism)...

The Non-Human World of China Miéville

Although I do not particularly admire the criticism of Harold Bloom, his Freudian theory that ambitious authors want to “kill” their strong literary predecessors is getting a lot of empirical support these days from British fantasy writers, first from Phillip Pullman,...

Farewells and Looking Ahead

By the time this issue reaches our subscribers, the nation will have chosen its two contending nominees for President. Unfortunately, the current candidates do not seem to have taken to heart the advice suggested by Christopher Layne, whose book, No More Illusions, is...

The Problem with the World is You?

God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get it by Jim Wallis. New York: HarperCollins, 2005, 2006. 432 pages. Nearly a century ago G. K. Chesterton asked “what’s wrong with the world?” His first and last answer was always the same: “I am.” In...

The Judicial Mask

A new Bookman online review from Gerald J. Russello covers How Judges Think by Richard A. Posner.

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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