The University Bookman

Reviewing Books that Build Culture

Watch James Panero of the New Criterion discuss “The Urbanity of Russell Kirk” at the 2025 Gerald Russello Memorial Lecture.

The Urbanity of Russell Kirk

“The urban fabric must also be mended and darned through continuous upkeep. The city is not yours to experiment. From Russell to Russello, our ancestral spirits cast their shadows whether or not we choose to observe the city of god in the cities of men.”

Words from the Hearth

“Each poem maps a path on the journey by sharing the personal and religious experiences of a young woman falling in love, getting married, and then expecting and welcoming children. As a reader who tends to prefer prose to poetry, I appreciate the narrative arc as well as the opportunity to reminisce, through Reardon’s work, on my own similar experiences. Reardon’s writing is intensely religious, elevating the seemingly mundane aspects of home life to a spiritual level. Because it draws such powerful connections, it invites readers to ponder how even the simplest details of their lives can lead to the divine.”

A Knight of the American West

“His new book is an exciting chivalric adventure and romance, while also being a contemporary American novel set in the Southwest USA. Exceptionally well written, its straightforward crafting is an encouragement to the reader who eagerly returns to its pages.”

Coming to Terms with Sherman

“…Glenn Arbery has contemporary America down cold, the more so since the cultural variations between North and South are far from being as marked as they were even fifty years ago.”

Men Rode to Catraeth

Men Rode to Catraeth

“Clarke reworks one of the most significant early Welsh poems into a modern song that anyone can appreciate. She reminds us that poetry must first and foremost move its readers, must cast a spell of words and rhythm that incites our passions and our imaginations.”

The Causes of Moral Agency

The Causes of Moral Agency

“Particularly in these hyper-polarized times, conservatives should be the first to break out of the blame-the-system-versus-blame-the-victim false dichotomy.”

Resurrecting John Keats

Resurrecting John Keats

“Lucasta Miller, in her brilliant new book on Keats, writes, ‘To read him is to participate in an invisible web that has connected human beings over millennia via the literary imagination.'”

Partisan Citizens

Partisan Citizens

“Citizenship demands open-minded discourse among persons from different backgrounds and with varying ideas in the interest of forming and preserving a consensus concerning the most advisable form of government.”

The Traditions That Gave Us Homer

The Traditions That Gave Us Homer

“Parry… ultimately became the most influential Classical—and perhaps literary—scholar of the twentieth-century precisely because he was able to side-step the Homeric Question altogether.”

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.

@EvieSolheim By the way, the @KirkCenter takes literature, ethics, character formation, & cultural renewal seriously

Encourage you to participate in our @ubookman academic journal & the fellowship of our literary & academic community, enshrining what Dr. Kirk calls “the Moral Imagination”

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