Irretrievable Eden
Outside The Gates of Eden By David Middleton. Measure Press, 2023. Hardcover, 114 pages, $25. Reviewed by Madeleine Austin. David Middleton’s Outside the Gates of Eden is a collection of formal poems rooted in contemplation of the Book of Genesis. What does it mean to...
Renewing Our Understanding of True Freedom
Called to Freedom: Retrieving Christian Liberty in an Age of License By Brad Littlejohn. B&H Academic, 2025. Paperback, 192 pages, $22.99. Reviewed by Andrew Fowler. Freedom could be Modernity’s most overused yet least understood word. In an American context,...
Abolitionism’s George Washington
The Conductor: The Story of Rev. John Rankin, Abolitionism’s Essential Founding Father By Caleb Franz. Post Hill Press, 2024. Paperback, 336 pages, $18.99. Reviewed by Peter Biles. The past is like a waterfall, and history is like the glass of water we pull from it....
A Novel Individual: An Interview with William F. Buckley Jr. on his Fiction
Interviewed by William F. Meehan III This interview ran in The University Bookman in 1996 (vol. 36, no. 2, pp. 25-32), when Jeffrey O. Nelson, who was the journal’s editor, expertly turned the lengthy manuscript of my 90-minute interview into a coherent, polished...
Life During Wartime
To Go On Living: Stories By Narine Abgaryan. Plough, 2025. Hardcover, 220 pages, $24.95. Reviewed by Michial Farmer. Modern Westerners live with a delusion. We actually live with a lot of delusions, but perhaps the most insidious one is that the normal condition of...
The Triumph of Love
Muses of a Fire: Essays on Faith, Film, and Literature By Paul Krause. Stone Tower Press, 2024. Paperback, 227 pages, $24.95. Reviewed by Jesse Russell. Roman Polanski’s 1974 masterpiece Chinatown is not only a classic of film noir, but it is also one of the greatest...
Understanding the Rest of Hemingway’s Iceberg
Hemingway’s Art of Revision: The Making of the Short Fiction By John Beall. Louisiana State University Press, 2024. Hardcover, 310 pages, $50. Reviewed by Sean C. Hadley. In Brad Paisley’s 2005 hit song, “Alcohol,” the country musician sings about the praises and...
The Postmodern Poetry of J.R.R. Tolkien
The Collected Poems of J.R.R. Tolkien: Three-Volume Box Set By J.R.R. Tolkien. Edited by Christina Scull & Wayne G. Hammond. William Morrow, 2024. Hardcover, 1728 pages, $125. Reviewed by Michael Lucchese. J.R.R. Tolkien surely ranks among the greatest novelists...
Catholic Zen
Person Means Relation By David Walsh. St. Augustine’s Press, 2024. Paperback, 110 pages, $16. Reviewed by Robert Grant Price. Those familiar with the writing of personalist philosopher David Walsh know that he’s densely aphoristic. Large tracts of his works, notably...
A Christmas Carol is great literature. Ghosts are a must for Christmas.