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.

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.”

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.”

Personalism in the Age of AI

“Personalism is a philosophical movement that places the human person at the center of inquiry, affirming the inherent dignity, value, and uniqueness of each individual. While it spans both religious and secular traditions, its common thread is a commitment to defending the irreducible reality of the person in an age increasingly shaped by systems, technologies, and abstractions.”

Christopher Dawson and Pluralism

“In particular, I want to examine three aspects of Dawson’s thought: his conclusion that cultures, especially Western culture, historically have been pluralist; his contention that a pluralism of cultures preserves a sphere of freedom from dominant modern ideologies that would eliminate that freedom; and finally, Dawson’s conviction that a pluralist world represents a new opportunity for evangelization.”

The Lost Art of Memento Mori

The Lost Art of Memento Mori

“To acknowledge and respect the end to which we are destined, to meditate and learn to bear the thought of it—this is one of the ancient disciplines which we have, beyond all argument, let fall into oblivion, and which we must, past all denial, dedicate ourselves to recovering.”

Fundamentally Religious and Catholic

Fundamentally Religious and Catholic

“…a comprehensive portrait of Tolkien’s religious life and thought has been lacking. Holly Ordway supplies that needed ‘spiritual biography’ decisively. Through exhaustive research and insightful analysis, she recounts Tolkien’s lifelong, tested, textured engagement with Roman Catholicism, and thereby establishes how fundamental it was to his identity as a person and a writer.”

Must the University Be Political?

Must the University Be Political?

“Should academic departments and scholarly societies issue position statements on current political matters? The practice is increasingly common today, but it still sparks debate…
This current debate has roots in the late 1960s, as Ellen Schrecker shows in her sprawling book…”

What Do Fungi Have to Do with Athens?

What Do Fungi Have to Do with Athens?

“[Sheldrake] hasn’t produced a polemic against the ideal of the self-sufficient liberal political subject, or even a policy brief in favor of honoring our interdependence with the natural world. Instead he just invites readers to consider whether, perhaps, they are lichen.”

Perspicuity at the Bar of History

Perspicuity at the Bar of History

“In what is undoubtedly the most comprehensive treatment of the topic to date, Chalk’s book meticulously breaks down the history and philosophy behind perspicuity, arguing that the doctrine has ultimately failed to achieve both spiritual truth and Christian unity.”

Two Cities: The Public and the Private

Two Cities: The Public and the Private

“The era of superlatives, the French Revolution, was the time when real people, tired of their private sufferings, abandoned their real names to become citoyens… Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité, and other pompous terms, took the place of the real, little, and unwordable affections, turning friends into foes, in the name of an unreal solidarity.”

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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