JOSEPH EPSTEIN

Who is the greatest living essayist writing in English? Joseph Epstein would surely be at the top of anybodys 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 Epsteins Wind Sprints: Shorter Essays is the third volume of essays from Axios Press following the much acclaimed Essays in Biography, 2012 and A Literary Education and Other Essays, 2014. It contains 142 short essays, literary sprints rather than marathons. Subjects range from domestic life to current social trends to an appraisal of contemporary nuttiness. 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.

Who is the greatest living essayist writing in English? Unquestionably Joseph Epstein. 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. How easy it is today to forget the simple delight of reading for no intended purpose. Each of the 39 pieces in this book is a pure pleasure to read.Now with linking endnotes and index.

Una malevolencia silenciosa, una hostilidad fría y secreta, un deseo impotente, un rencor oculto y mortificante... Todos estos elementos componen el núcleo de la envidia. Según Joseph Epstein, la envidia nubla el pensamiento, quebranta la generosidad, rompe cualquier vestigio de paz y acaba marchitando el corazon. De los siete pecados capitales, concluye, la envidia es el unico que no tiene nada de divertido. Adoptando un estilo coloquial, erudito y desmitificador que arroja luz sobre su propio pensamiento, Epstein realiza un recorrido estimulante por las multiples facetas de la envidia. Evalua lo que los grandes pensadores como Schopenhauer, Nietzsche y John Rawls-- han escrito sobre la envidia; distingue entre envidia, anhelo, celos, resentimiento y schadenfreude (un arbol perenne en el descuidado jardin de las emociones amargas) y elabora una lista de cosas susceptibles de envidia, como la riqueza, la belleza, el poder, el talento, el conocimiento y la inteligencia, la buena suerte y la juventud (o, como reza el titulo del capitulo que Epstein dedica a la juventud, Los jovenes: que Dios los maldiga). Pero tambien analiza el resentimiento academico, que produce una envidia mezclada con excentricidad, atizada por la impotencia y proyectada sobre un telon de fondo de injusticia cosmica; ofrece una lucida lectura de Otelo, considerando la envidia de Iago mas relevante que los celos del protagonista; y señala que la envidia contiene una gran concentracion de malevolencia, porque el envidioso quiere destruir la felicidad de los demas. Asi, apunta que la envidia del exito de los judios en Alemania y Austria pudo ser el desencadenante del virulento antisemitismo de los nazis. Como ya se hizo patente en otro de sus libros, Snobbery, Joseph Epstein tiene una capacidad inimitable para analizar nuestros defectos de un modo reflexivo, provocativo y agil. Aunque la envidia no sea divertida, la Envidia de Epstein es, sin duda, un texto de lectura absorbente.

Joseph Epstein takes on that most enchanting (and, alas, increasingly rare) of human gifts, charm. Almost everyone will recognize when he or she is in the presence of charm, he writes. Charm is magic of a kind; it casts a spell. In the presence of charm the world seems lighter and lovelier. A charming person can cause you to forget your problems, at least temporarily, to hold the worlds dreariness at bay. Charm is a reminder that the world is filled with jolly prospects and delightful possibilities. Watching Fred Astaire dance, or listening to Blossom Dearie sing, or reading the poems of C.P. Cavafy, or merely looking at Rita Hayworth or Ava Gardner, one recalls that the world can be a pretty damn fine place.

A collection of personal essays from Americas most revered essay writer, Joseph Epstein.Americas greatest living essayist writes about life and aging and being all too nicely out of it. In these personal pieces, he takes on topics as varied as grieving for a dead son, learning Latin late in life, and the pleasures of living with cats. Epstein gives us a bonfire of his own vanities, his thoughts about why watching sports is so impossibly seductive, what it is like to be short, and why he misses smoking even decades as a health-obsessed non-smoker. Above all, he writes about the literary life and the endless joys that reading and writing have brought to a self-confessed lucky man.

A rich and comic portrait of the radical changes in American life and the literary world over the last eighty years. An autobiography usually requires a justification. The great autobiographiesthose by Benvenuto Cellini, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Benjamin Franklin, and Henry Brooks Adamswere justified by their authors living in interesting times, harboring radically new ideas, or participating in great events. Joseph Epstein qualifies on none of these counts. His life has been quiet, lucky in numerous ways, and far from dramatic. But it has also been emblematic of the great changes in our country since World War II.He grew up in a petit-bourgeois, Midwestern milieu, and the city of Chicago looms large in his life. He drew a lucky ticket in the parent lottery and his was a happy boyhood spent on playgrounds and hanging around drug stores. At high school dances, he was the rhumba king and at drive-in movies he was never allowed to go as far with girls as he so ardently desired. At twenty-six, after two years in the army, he found himself married, the father or stepfather of four children, and living in New York on the meager salary of a magazine subeditor. He was ablaze with ambition and fettered by frustration. He broke out by moving to Little Rock, Arkansas, to direct the citys anti-poverty program at the height of the Civil Rights movement. His writing career blossomed, he began teaching at Northwestern University, and, for twenty-five years, edited one of great intellectual magazines.Never Say Youve Had a Lucky Life is an intimate look at one life steeped in radical change: from a traditionally moral culture to a therapeutic one, from an era when the extended family was strong to its current diminished status, from print to digital life featuring the war of pixel on print, and on. But for all the seriousness of Epsteins themes, this book is memorable for its comic point of view and the constant reminder of how unpredictable, various, and wondrously rich life can be.

The estimable Joseph Epsteinessayist, past editor of The American Scholar, and recipient of the 2003 National Humanities Medal along with Hal Holbrook and John Updikebrings together twenty short stories in his first such collection since 2010. Most, though not all, of the stories are set in Epsteins hometown of Chicago, but otherwise they have a variety of subjects: among the titles are "Dads Gay,""The Casanova of LaSalle Street,""JDate,""Adultery,""Widows Pique,""Race Relations,""The Man on Whom Everything Was Lost,""My Five Husbands," and "Second Family." Most are stories about family and friendships.

Who invented the personal essay? That is hard to say. The ancient Roman philosopher and cynical power broker, Seneca? The 16th century French philosopher Montaigne certainly brought it to a peak of perfection. There were many 19th century masters, not so many after that. Who is the greatest living essayist writing in English? That requires no debate at all. It is unquestionably Joseph Epstein. He is not only the best living essayist; he is right up there in the company of Seneca and Montaigne, but one of our own, living in our era and dealing with our pleasures and travails. 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. Epstein reads omnivorously and brings us the best of what he reads, passages that we would never have found on our own. How easy it is today, in the digital age, drowning in emails and other ephemera, to forget the simple delight of reading for no intended purpose. Like any master essayist, however, this one brings us more than the shared experience of a lifetime of reading. He brings us himself, alternately scolding and charming, sparkling and deep, buoyant and sad, zany and wise, rebellious and conservative, bookworm and sports fan, clever and everyman, debunker and preservationist, deep into high culture, deep into low culture, curious, fresh, and settled in his ways. This is the friend we all wish we could have, the ideal, humane companion who is completely comfortable in his own human skin. Like Plutarch, he gives us life teaching by example, but with a wry smile and such a sure hand that we hardly notice the instruction. It is pure pleasure.

Who is the greatest living essayist writing in English? Joseph Epstein would surely be at the top of anybodys 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 Epsteins 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.

Who is the greatest living essayist writing in English? Joseph Epstein would surely be at the top of anybodys 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 Epsteins The Ideal of Culture: Essays is the fourth such volume from Axios Press and contains 63 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, and Wind Sprints: Shorter Essays, 2016.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.