The University Bookman

Reviewing Books that Build Culture

What the American Revolution Secured: Order, Justice, and Freedom

Throughout the semiquincentennial year celebrating America’s independence, The University Bookman will invite a range of writers and speakers to contribute to a series drawing upon Russell Kirk’s work on the American Revolution and the constitutional order it secured.

To Find Eyes to See

“Hren selects earnest classics that have stood the test of time—books that generations of readers have found edifying and moving. But also, in the introduction and conclusion alike, Hren returns to another key point of fiction: it doesn’t just help us see extraordinary truth, although it can. More important is that fiction gives us eyes to see the transcendence of ordinary lives, including our own.”

Rural America as It Really Is

“Harold Bell Wright, regardless of how literary tastemakers viewed him in the 1920s, is the central figure in the origin of Branson. Though denigrated by the Baldwins and H. L. Menckens of his day, Wright was one of the century’s best-selling novelists.”

The Poet Watches Birds

“Jennifer A. Hartenburg’s debut collection of poems… offers such a poetic practice of waking, attending, and caring. These are poems rich with the life of the world, flocking with birds and bees both literal and metaphorical, but also closely attentive to the quiddities of language and the motions of the soul.”

Apocalyptic Hope?

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

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 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?

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.”

Betting on Catastrophe 

Betting on Catastrophe 

“…who better than The New Criterion’s bench of deep thinkers to mull over James Burnham’s hypothesis—’Suicide is probably more frequent than murder as the end phase of a civilization’—with respect to Christendom’s funereal prospects.”

The War for the Second Age

The War for the Second Age

“At its core… Sibley’s volume is the story of a Fall, and as such gives readers unparalleled insight into the moral underpinnings of Tolkien’s world.”

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.

To Find Eyes to See
@NadyaWilliams81 on "More Than a Matter of Taste: The Moral Imagination and the Spirit of Literature" by Joshua Hren. @WordOnFire Luminor

Rural America as It Really Is
Jason C. Phillips on "Faith, Family, and Flag: Branson Entertainment and the Idea of America" by Joanna Dee Das. @UChicagoPress

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