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.

Would you consider a gift to help us continue this work?

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.

If you love the Bookman, and read us with regularity, we’d greatly appreciate your generous support this month.

With gratitude,

Luke Sheahan, Ph.D., editor
The University Bookman

P.S. As a special thank you to all Bookman supporters this month, we’ll send you a link to an audio recording of Ex Tenebris, one of Kirk’s best ghostly short stories. We think you’ll really enjoy it.

Campaign Progress

John Adams: Russell Kirk’s Founding Federalist

“…[Kirk] located the mainstream of the American Founding not with the Jeffersonian Republicans, but with their rivals in the Federalist party. Kirk admired them not only as practical statesmen, but also as anti-revolutionary thinkers in their own right. As he put it, the Constitution they supported was both ‘the most successful conservative device in the history of the world’ and a ‘great monument’ to the Federalists.”

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.

The Brothers Stuart and the Rise of Protestant England

“…Belloc remains a draught of fresh air and a happy antidote to the official version of English national history, with its idealized tale of public-spirited reforms and liberal advances broadening down to the happy present.”

The Fog of the American War for Independence

“Academic and popular history of the period has long noted the early intimidation and violence that accompanied the rise of an American political consciousness and revolutionary movement.”

“To Think Faith” as Educators

“…faith and pedagogy should be in harmony. Smith’s guide is not a theory of faith and teaching or how to sprinkle faith within teaching. ‘It offers repeated practice at noticing and thinking through ways in which faith and the process of teaching might connect in everyday practice,’ in the mundane moments of elementary, secondary, or higher education classrooms.”

Spilt Religion: Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials

His Dark Materials (complete trilogy) by Philip Pullman. Alfred A. Knopf (New York City, New York), cloth, 2000.Although Philip Pullman’s trilogy of fantasy books for children, HisDark Materials, is barely known in the United States, that is set to change. The...

A Call to Contemplatives

The Church and the Land by Fr. Vincent McNabb.IHS Press (Norfolk, Virginia), 195 pp., $14.95 paper, 2003.Few in our time have heard of Father Vincent McNabb—Irishman, Dominican theologian, leading light among the Distributists, and man of paradigmatic character....

From Welch To Rand: Getting It, Buckley-Style

Getting It Right by William F. Buckley, Jr. Regnery Publishing, 2003. 311 pp., $24.95 cloth.“In your heart you know he’s right.” The slogan, of course, dates from the 1964 failed presidential campaign/crusade of Senator Barry Goldwater. Surprisingly,...

A Baptist Perspective on Tolkien’s Catholic Evangelism

The Gospel According to Tolkien by Ralph C. Wood Westminster/John Knox Press (Louisville, Kentucky), 169 pp., $14.95 paper, 2003.It is a remarkable irony and a sign of the times that a book written by a Baptist professor at a Baptist university and published by a...

John Jay: Man of Order, Justice, Freedom

John Jay: Founding Father by Walter Stahr. Hambledon & London (London) 482 pp., $29.95 cloth, 2005.John Jay arguably is the least known of the most significant Founding Fathers. Yet at one time, he was considered by many to be the logical successor to Washington...

Taking to Tolkien

A Hidden Presence: The Catholic Imagination of J. R. R. Tolkien Edited by Ian Boyd, C.S.B and Stratford Caldecott. The Chesterton Press (Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey) 185 pp., $5.95 paper, 2003.It is an exciting time to be an admirer of J. R. R....

Making Good Republicans

The American Republic: Primary Sources edited by Bruce Frohnen. The Liberty Fund, Inc. (Indianapolis, Indiana), 752 pp., $25.00 cloth, $12.00 paper, 2002.   WHAT SHOULD BE TAUGHT to American undergraduates and law students to make them good republicans? The...

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.

Jesuits and Revolutions
Rev. Anthony D. Andreassi, C.O. on "Dragons: A Roman Requiem" by Joseph Carola, S.J.
@SophiaPress

Taking Movies Seriously, Perhaps Too Seriously
Thomas Banks on "The Screen and the Mirror: What Movies Show Us About Ourselves, the World, and God" by Gina Dalfonzo.

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