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.

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.”

Aliens to Life

“…the mundane activities of ‘waiting in line, writing by hand, remote learning, navigation, boredom’ may be the only thing keeping us from becoming machines.”

The Postwar British Conservative Movement

“Kowol identifies three prominent stands within the conservative movement in Britain that, to use Nash’s words, wanted ‘to change it, restore it, preserve it.'”

Leisure and the Lost Ascent

“…leisure cannot be achieved when it is sought as a means to an end, even if that end is something as noble as the salvation of Western civilization. The ultimate root of leisure, divine worship, is beyond the reach of the human will. Though leisure requires willing openness to God’s grace, even that openness is itself a grace.”

More Than a Commercial Republic

by John Grove | Dec 26, 2022

“Given recent ideological and partisan shifts, Gregg argues, America today faces a choice between the path of free markets or state capitalism.”

The Moral and Cultural Basis of the Free Market

by Paul D. Mueller | Dec 18, 2022

“Gregg wrestles with the problems and economic debates of our time and offers a commercial republic as a compelling alternative to our current economic malaise and national moroseness.”

The Circumnavigation of Eliot

by Ben Lockerd | Dec 18, 2022

“A company of scholars, led by Professor Ronald Schuchard, labored for a decade to produce this monumental scholarly work… The project was brilliantly and painstakingly accomplished, and it is having a marked effect on scholarly studies of Eliot…”

The Waste Land at 100

by James Matthew Wilson | Dec 14, 2022

“If poets came to speak less clearly in consequence of Eliot’s great reputation, Eliot also reestablished poetry as a way of coming to know reality and to perceive the order of being even amid the wreckage of history. If he staged a revolution, he also made possible a restoration.”

The American Technological Advantage

by Casey Chalk | Dec 11, 2022

Casey Chalk reviews Victory at Sea: Naval Power and the Transformation of the Global Order in World War II.

An Antidote to Today’s Malaise

by Auguste Meyrat | Dec 11, 2022

Auguste Meyrat reviews A Time for Wisdom.

Returning to the Heights of Statesmanship

by Zachary K. German | Dec 4, 2022

“…Mahoney exhorts us to hope for more from our leaders and to demand more from ourselves—more gratitude for great statesmen and the inheritance that they have passed on to us, more openness to human excellence and its importance, more conviction about moral truth, and more rigorous thought about the characteristics of statesmanship.”

Reclaiming Protestantism At Its Best

by John Ehrett | Dec 4, 2022

“…the Reformers celebrated by so many churches today shared a far “thicker” vision of society than the American frontier ideal… Theirs was an era of magistracy and hierarchy, not of lone cowboys gazing out upon an untapped wilderness.”

On the Fall of Fated Men

by Timothy D. Lusch | Nov 27, 2022

“Ranging over six centuries of invasion, immigration, and royal intrigue, Morris recounts the fascinating tale of that elusive bunch known, quite rightly, as the Anglo-Saxons.”