A Secular Confession
Nothing Left: Confessions of a Democratic Operative By Evan Barker. Simon and Schuster, 2026. Hardcover, 288 pages, $29. Reviewed by John C. “Chuck” Chalberg. The journey from left to right is a staple of American political memoirs. But few journeys have been as...
Ames, Hamilton, Marshall: Russell Kirk’s Other Founding Federalists
By Michael Lucchese. A Russell Kirk Center Special Series 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...
Going West, Berlin Style
Cold War City: A History of West Berlin By David E. Barclay. Princeton University Press, 2026. Hardcover, 680 pages, $39.95. Reviewed by Nadya Williams. It is perhaps fitting that after spending the first decade of my life in the Soviet Union, I first learned...
More Religion, Less Spiritualism, Please
The Foundations of Re-Enchantment: Freemasonry, Theosophy, and the Occult Revival By Christopher Coome. Oxford University Press, 2025. Hardcover, 392 pages, $99. Reviewed by Camilo Peralta. The decline of faith in the modern world remains a popular and contentious...
Letters of a Literary Legend
The Man Who Read Everything: The Literary Letters of Harold Bloom Edited by Heather Cass White. Yale University Press, 2026. Hardcover, 248 pages, $30. Reviewed by Oliver Spivey. Harold Bloom (1930-2019), with his preternaturally expansive intellect, stocked with...
Did you hear? This month a generous supporter has offered to MATCH every gift up to $5k for the Kirktober campaign in support of the mission of @ubookman: https://buff.ly/PECA0Az.
@ubookman @NadyaWilliams81 "The past couple of years have been a time of seemingly endless jeremiads about the decline of reading, literacy, and books..in the midst of such chaos, @ubookman simply continues to review ‘books that build culture’—a mission to which I am honored to contribute.”