Author | Joseph Epstein |
---|---|
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Subject | Collection of essays |
Publisher | Axios Press |
Publication date | October 7, 2020 |
Media type | Print, hardback |
Pages | 505 |
ISBN | 978-1-604-19128-8 |
Gallimaufry, A Collection of Essays, Reviews, Bits, is a 2020 collection of 57 essays, book reviews, and shorter pieces all by Joseph Epstein. Essay topics in this collection include authors, literature, biographies, writing, language (its use and misuse), universities, culture, Chicago and humor. The collection is organized into three sections: (i) Essays and Reviews, longer pieces, #1-39 below, (ii) Bits and Pieces, shorter pieces, #40-56 below and (iii) Edward Redux, an essay on his friend and mentor Edward Shils. All of these essays were previously published in journals and anthologies including The Weekly Standard, Commentary (magazine), Claremont Review of Books, Wall Street Journal and others.
# | Title | Date | Topic(s) |
---|---|---|---|
1 | The Bookish Life | 2018 | |
2 | Body without Soul | 2020 | book by Bill Bryson |
3 | Chicago, Then and Now | 2018 | |
4 | Jewish Jokes | 2018 | also Jeremy Dauber's book "Jewish Comedy" |
5 | Short Attention Span | 2017 | |
6 | Intellectual Marines in Little Magazines | 2008 | journalism, also Partisan Review, Kenyon Review and others |
7 | The American Language | 2018 | H.L. Mencken and his book The American Language |
8 | University of Chicago Days | 2017 | |
9 | Frittering Prizes | 1997 | literature prizes |
10 | The Tzaddick of the Intellectuals | 2017 | Leon Wieseltier, Tzadik |
11 | The Menace of Political Correctness | 2019 | |
12 | Hail, Mommsen | 2018 | Theodore Mommsen |
13 | Big Julie | 2019 | Julius Caesar |
14 | Our Gladiators | 2018 | Tiger Woods and professional athletes |
15 | Diamonds Are Forever | 2016 | baseball |
16 | What’s the Story? | 2017 | the case for conservatism |
17 | University Presidents | 2019 | |
18 | Immaturity on Campus | 2020 | |
19 | Heinrich Heine | 2018 | |
20 | Joseph Roth | 2018 | |
21 | Stefan Zweig | 2019 | |
22 | Vasily Grossman | 2011 | |
23 | Evelyn Waugh | 2017 | also biography by Philip Eade |
24 | P. G. Wodehouse | 2018 | |
25 | Tom Wolfe | 2018 | |
26 | Susan Sontag, Savant-Idiot | 2019 | Susan Sontag and biography by Benjamin Moser |
27 | Lionel Trilling | 2019 | |
28 | Proust’s Duchesses | 2018 | biography by Caroline Weber |
29 | Denis Diderot | 2019 | also biography by Robert Zaretzsky |
30 | Isaiah Berlin | 2016 | collection of his letters by Henry Hardy |
31 | Johnson-Boswell | 2019 | book by Leo Damrosch about Samuel Johnson |
32 | Stop Your Blubbering | 2019 | book by Jonathan Ree about philosophy |
33 | George Gershwin | 2009 | biography by Walter Rimler |
34 | Nelson Algren | 2019 | biography by Colin Asher |
35 | Essayism | 2018 | book by Brian Dillon |
36 | Alcibiades | 2019 | biography by David Stuttard |
37 | Big Bill Tilden | 2016 | Bill Tilden and biography by Allen Hornblum |
38 | The Semicolon | 2019 | book by Cecilia Watson |
39 | The Meritocracy | 2019 | book by Daniel Markovits |
40 | Close Shaves | 2018 | shaving |
41 | Location, Location, Location | 2018 | Evanston, Illinois neighborhood |
42 | Milt Rosenberg | 2018 | radio interview program in Chicago |
43 | Only a Hobby | 2018 | Anne Fadiman memoir of Clifton Fadiman and wine |
44 | Hello, Dolly | 2018 | pet cat |
45 | Dirty Words | 2018 | profanity |
46 | See Me Out | 2018 | aging and possessions |
47 | Shabby Chic | 2017 | casual attire |
48 | Thoughts and Prayers | 2018 | condolences and cliches |
49 | Table It | 2018 | word use and changing meanings |
50 | Don’t Hide Your Eyes, Weaponize | 2019 | word use and misuse |
51 | Does Not Hug | 2017 | not embracing |
52 | In Bad Taste or Not, I’ll Keep My Comic Sans | 2019 | font |
53 | Yidiosyncrasies | 2018 | quirks |
54 | Sinfood | 2017 | |
55 | A Nobel Prize for Marriage | 2018 | famous married couples |
56 | Hold the Memorial | 2018 | funerals, memorial speeches |
57 | Edward Remembered | 2019 | Edward Shils -- professor and sociologist |
In The American Spectator Larry Thornberry said "I consider Epstein to be the finest essayist and columnist on active duty today." [1] Thornberry appreciated the wide variety of topics taken up in this collection. He concluded with: "(Epstein's) work is a kind of literary palate cleansing." [1]
At Anecdotal Evidence Patrick Kurp said: "At age eighty-three, Epstein remains our most entertaining, wide-ranging, industrious, learned practitioner of both familiar and critical essays." [2]
Vorticism was a London-based modernist art movement formed in 1914 by the writer and artist Wyndham Lewis. The movement was partially inspired by Cubism and was introduced to the public by means of the publication of the Vorticist manifesto in Blast magazine. Familiar forms of representational art were rejected in favour of a geometric style that tended towards a hard-edged abstraction. Lewis proved unable to harness the talents of his disparate group of avant-garde artists; however, for a brief period Vorticism proved to be an exciting intervention and an artistic riposte to Marinetti's Futurism and the post-impressionism of Roger Fry's Omega Workshops.
Ibn Warraq is the pen name of an anonymous author critical of Islam. He is the founder of the Institute for the Secularisation of Islamic Society and used to be a senior research fellow at the Center for Inquiry, focusing on Quranic criticism. Warraq is the vice-president of the World Encounter Institute.
Sir Jacob Epstein was an American-British sculptor who helped pioneer modern sculpture. He was born in the United States, and moved to Europe in 1902, becoming a British subject in 1910.
Susan Lee Sontag was an American writer, critic, and public intellectual. She mostly wrote essays, but also published novels; she published her first major work, the essay "Notes on 'Camp' ", in 1964. Her best-known works include the critical works Against Interpretation (1966), On Photography (1977), Illness as Metaphor (1978) and Regarding the Pain of Others, as well as the fictional works The Way We Live Now (1986), The Volcano Lover (1992), and In America (1999).
The New York Review of Books is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of important books is an indispensable literary activity. Esquire called it "the premier literary-intellectual magazine in the English language." In 1970, writer Tom Wolfe described it as "the chief theoretical organ of Radical Chic".
The American Spectator is a conservative American magazine covering news and politics, edited by R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. and published by the non-profit American Spectator Foundation. It was founded in 1967 by Tyrrell, who remains its editor-in-chief, with Wladyslaw Pleszczynski its editorial director since 1980.
Wallace Earle Stegner was an American novelist, writer, environmentalist, and historian. He was often called "The Dean of Western Writers". He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1972 and the U.S. National Book Award in 1977.
An anecdote is "a story with a point", such as to communicate an abstract idea about a person, place, or thing through the concrete details of a short narrative or to characterize by delineating a specific quirk or trait.
Shiva Naipaul, born Shivadhar Srinivasa Naipaul in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, was an Indo-Trinidadian and British novelist and journalist.
Daniel Mark Epstein is an American poet, dramatist, and biographer. His poetry has been noted for its erotic and spiritual lyricism, as well as its power—in several dramatic monologues—in capturing crucial moments of American history. While he has continued to publish poetry he is more widely known for his biographies of Nat King Cole, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Bob Dylan and Abraham Lincoln, and his radio plays, "Star of Wonder," and "The Two Menorahs," which have become holiday mainstays on National Public Radio.
Joseph Epstein is an American writer who was the editor of the magazine The American Scholar from 1975 to 1997. His essays and stories have appeared in books and other publications.
Renata Adler is an American author, journalist, and film critic. Adler was a staff writer-reporter for The New Yorker for over thirty years and the chief film critic for The New York Times from 1968 to 1969. She has also published several fiction and non-fiction books, and has been awarded the O. Henry Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the PEN/Hemingway Award.
The Little Review, was an American avant-garde literary magazine founded by Margaret Anderson in Chicago's historic Fine Arts Building, published literary and art work from 1914 to May 1929. With the help of Jane Heap and Ezra Pound, Anderson created a magazine that featured a wide variety of transatlantic modernists and cultivated many early examples of experimental writing and art. Many contributors were American, British, Irish, and French. In addition to publishing a variety of international literature, The Little Review printed early examples of surrealist artwork and Dadaism. The magazine's most well known work was the serialization of James Joyce's Ulysses.
Larry Bell is an American contemporary artist and sculptor. He is best known for his glass boxes and large-scaled illusionistic sculptures. He is a grant recipient from, among others, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation, and his artworks are found in the collections of many major cultural institutions. He lives and works in Taos, New Mexico, and maintains a studio in Venice, California.
Patrick Ness FRSL is an American-British author, journalist, lecturer, and screenwriter. Born in the United States, Ness moved to London and holds dual citizenship. He is best known for his books for young adults, including the Chaos Walking (2008-2010) trilogy and A Monster Calls (2011).
Claude J. Summers is an American literary scholar, and the William E. Stirton Professor Emeritus in the Humanities and Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. A native of Galvez, Louisiana, he was the third child of Burg Martin Summers and Theo Coy Causey. He was educated in the public schools of Ascension Parish, graduating from Gonzales High School in 1962. He has long credited two teachers at Gonzales High School—Diana Sevario Welch and Sherry Rushing—for inspiring his interest in academic achievement.
Patrick Dewes Hanan was a New Zealand scholar of Chinese literature who was the Victor S. Thomas Professor of Chinese Literature at Harvard University. A sinologist, he specialised in pre-20th-century vernacular fiction.
Nebula Awards Showcase 2004 is an anthology of award-winning science fiction short works edited by Vonda N. McIntyre. It was first published in trade paperback by Roc/New American Library in March 2004.
The Nebula Awards Showcase 2011 is an anthology of science fiction short works edited by American writer Kevin J. Anderson. It was first published in trade paperback and ebook by Tor Books in May 2011. The first British edition was published in trade paperback and ebook by Robinson in February 2012 under the alternate title The Mammoth Book of Nebula Awards SF.
Mother Journeys: Feminists Write about Mothering is a collection of essays, poems, cartoons, and drawings edited by Maureen T. Reddy, Martha Roth, and Amy Sheldon and published by Spinsters Ink in 1994. The collection was among the first books to address the topic of mothering from a specifically feminist perspective at a time when many assumed "feminism and mothering were mutually incompatible".