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.
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
A Musical Century Revisited: The Neo-Romantic Aesthetic from Bloch to Flagello
Voices in the Wilderness: Six American Neo-Romantic Composers by Walter Simmons. Scarecrow Press (Lanham, Maryland), 419 pp., $60.00 cloth, 2004.In this persuasively argued and passionately committed book, musicologist Walter Simmons makes his discussion of six...
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 Bach Moment
James V. Schall, S. J. Recently, I wandered into Barnes & Noble on M Street in Georgetown intending to purchase the new Compendium of Catholic Social Doctrine. They did not have it. To save money, if that is the purpose of life, I should have left at that moment....
The Challenges of Rebuilding Russia: Forming New Russian Conservatism
Notes from AbroadIf we look at the Russian conservative movement, we can identify several small parties: for example the Party of Russian Unity and Concord and the Conservative Party of Russia. The conservative movement includes a wide spectrum of ideas, approaches,...
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.
The award ceremony will be on 11/19 at the National Press Club in DC. More information and registration here:
The @KirkCenter has announced that the McLellan Prize for Free Speech will be awarded to influential legal scholar Eugene Volokh! @VolokhC https://kirkcenter.org/highlights/eugene-volokh-awarded-2026-richard-d-mclellan-prize-for-advancing-free-speech-and-expression/
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