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Who is the greatest living essayist writing in English? Joseph Epstein would surely be at the top of anybody's list. Epstein is penetrating. He is witty. He has a magic touch with words, that hard to define but immediately recognizable quality called style. Above all, he is impossible to put down.
Joseph Epstein's Gallimaufry: A Collection of Essays, Reviews, Bits is the fifth such volume from Axios Press and contains 58 essays. Subjects range from domestic life to current social trends to an appraisal of ¿contemporary nuttiness.¿ It follows the much-acclaimed Essays in Biography, 2012; A Literary Education and Other Essays, 2014; Wind Sprints: Shorter Essays, 2016; and The Ideal of Culture: Essays, 2018.
After reading Epstein, we see life with a fresh eye. We also see ourselves a little more clearly. This is what Plutarch intended: life teaching by example, but with a wry smile and such a sure hand that we hardly notice the instruction. It is just pure pleasure.
List of contents
Introduction
Essays
The Bookish LifeBody without SoulChicago, Then and NowJewish JokesShort Attention SpanIntellectual Marines in Little MagazinesWhy Read Biography?The American LanguageUniversity of Chicago DaysThe Frittering PrizesThe Tzaddick of the Intellectuals The Menace of Political CorrectnessTheodor Mommsen Big JulieOur GladiatorsDiamonds Are ForeverWhat's the Story?University PresidentsImmaturity on CampusHeinrich HeineJoseph RothStefan ZweighVasily GrossmanEvelyn Waugh P. G. WodehouseTom WolfeSusan Sontag, Savant-IdiotLionel TrillingProust's DuchessesDenis DiderotIsaiah BerlinJohnson-BoswellStop Your BlubberingGeorge GershwinNelson AlgrenEssayismAlcibiadesBig Bill TildenThe SemicolonThe Meritocracy Bits and Pieces
Close ShavesLocation, Location, LocationMilt RosenbergOnly a HobbyHello, DollyDirty WordsSee Me OutShabby ChicThoughts and PrayersTable ItDon't Hide Your Eyes, WeaponizeDoes Not HugIn Bad Taste or Not, I'll Keep My Comic SansYidiosyncrasisSinfoodA Nobel Prize for MarriageHold the Memorial Edward Redux
Edward Redux Index
About the author
By Joseph Epstein
