The University Bookman
Reviewing Books that Build Culture
Support the University Bookman during our annual Kirktober Fundraiser, and receive an audio copy of Kirk’s short story, What Shadows We Pursue.
Kirktober 2025: James Panero and Adam Simon on the Haunted House
October 28, 2025
On Tuesday, October 28, at 6:00 PM, you are invited to join University Bookman editor Luke Sheahan, Hollywood screenwriter Adam Simon, and New Criterion executive editor James Panero, as they explore the theme of the haunted house in gothic literature and its relationship to conservative thought and imagination.
Register for this free webinar here.
Where Is Home?
“…’Who will keep our stories alive, no matter where we go?’ Perhaps that is a question even more poignant than ‘Where is home?’ especially for those who are either dispossessed of a homeland or simply feel rootless in a thousand small ways as they struggle to navigate this dizzyingly complex world.”
Russell Kirk vs. Fusionism: A Conflict in Name Only?
“Kirk called ideology the ‘negation of prudence’ and the ‘foe of imagination.’ Both prudence and imagination are key ideas in Kirk’s political thought. For him, prudence is the preeminent political virtue, and all good politics is inspired by the moral imagination.”
Restoring the True and the Beautiful
“…Klavan offers just the right prescription to postmoderns emerging from scientific materialism—and eager to be told what their stories mean.”
Nihilism as Public Policy
“The difference between nihilism as a private response to life’s contingencies and its sinister manifestation as public policy, Houellebecq aptly points out, is that the latter demands that nihilism become institutionalized.”
Paul Johnson (1937-2023): A Valediction
M. D. Aeschliman remembers the British historian Paul Johnson.
Apocalyptic Hope?
“…Hart teases out the distinction between tradition and traditionalism in a book that is thought-provoking and rewarding even where one disagrees with him.”
In Dialogue, We Dwell
“…political sentiment in America has atrophied to ‘factionalism,’ or precisely that against which James Madison warned in Federalist No. 10…”
Shakespeare and the Real
“…Shakespeare has indeed become, like the body of Patroclus, the center of one of the most violent skirmishes in the larger battle that rages over the gargantuan remains of the West.”
Can We Trust the Gospels?
“…McGrew contends not only that there is strong external evidence for the God of the New Testament… but that there is also good internal evidence—the information conveyed in the biblical accounts corresponds to what we know about the way truthful people talk and write.”
The Book Gallery
A collection of conversations with Bookman editor Luke C. Sheahan and writers and authors of imagination and erudition.
