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.”

Wall Street Journal

We were pleased to see the aptly titled op-ed “The Conservative Mind” by Peter Berkowitz in The Wall Street Journal on May 29, 2007. Very clearly written and helpful.

The Moral Imagination

The moral imagination is an enduring source of inspiration that elevates us to first principles as it guides us upwards towards virtue and wisdom and redemption. In the franchise bookshops of the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred eighty-one, the shelves are...

Returning to the Real

On Essays and LettersHenri de Lubac, the great French Jesuit theologian, had a collection of nineteen letters that he had received from the French historian of philosophy Étienne Gilson (Letters of Étienne Gilson to Henri de Lubac [Ignatius, 1988]). After Gilson’s...

The Irreconcilable Faces of French Conservatism

Impossible Conservatism [Le Conservatisme impossible: Libéraux et réactionnaires en France depuis 1789] by François Huguenin. La Table Ronde (Paris), 395 pp., €21.50, 2006. While in America, defining and redefining conservatism has long been a conservative pastime,...

A Resurrection Apologetic

Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense by N. T. Wright. Harper Collins (San Francisco) 240 pp., $29.50, cloth, 2006. Tom Wright is the author of many scholarly and popular books, including a popular-level translation and commentary of the New Testament (the...

A Case for Insular History

The Discovery of Islands by J. G. A. Pocock. Cambridge University Press (Cambridge), 358 pp., $75.00, 2006. Each generation revises history to fit its own needs and preoccupations because,while the past itself remains constant, the prism through with it is seen...

Let Us Walk in the Light of the Lord

Peace in the Promised Land: A Realist Scenario edited by Srdja Trifkovic. Rockford Institute (Rockford, Illinois), 2005. 368 pp., $29.95 paper.Political science, properly understood, can be capable of seeking “the truth of existence,” of establishing order in society....

Red Mist

How Small Presses Rescue Classic Genre Writers from OblivionThe first two generations of the twentieth century were reading generations, devoting part of their hard earned leisure to the major writers of the day—Booth Tarkington, Sinclair Lewis, and F. Scott...

Tiber, Thames, Potomac

That the First Amendment establishes a “separation” between church and state throughout all levels of government has long been a stubborn myth of American life, shared by both nativists and, at least since the early part of the last century, most liberals. Philip...

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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