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| Author | Joseph Epstein |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Subject | Collection of essays |
| Publisher | Axios Press |
Publication date | May 7, 2018 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print, hardback |
| Pages | 572 |
| ISBN | 978-1-604-19124-0 |
The Ideal of Culture : Essays, is a 2018 collection of 63 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.
Essays collected
| # | Title | Date | Topic(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Ideal of Culture | 2017 | |
| 2 | From Parent to Parenthood | 2015 | |
| 3 | Death Takes No Holiday | 2014 | |
| 4 | Wit | 2015 | |
| 5 | Genius | 2013 | |
| 6 | Cowardice | 2015 | |
| 7 | Old Age and Other Laughs | 2012 | |
| 8 | What’s So Funny? | 2014 | |
| 9 | The Fall of the WASPs | 2013 | |
| 10 | The Virtue of Victims | 2015 | |
| 11 | Cool | 2017 | |
| 12 | The Sixties | 2017 | |
| 13 | University of Chicago Days | 2017 | |
| 14 | Eric Auerbach | 2014 | |
| 15 | Kafka | 2013 | |
| 16 | Orwell | 1990 | |
| 17 | Proust | 2012 | |
| 18 | C.K. Scott Moncrieff | 2015 | biography of translator of Proust by Jean Findlay |
| 19 | The Young T. S. Eliot | 2015 | Eliot biography by Crawford |
| 20 | Philip Larkin | 2014 | Larkin biography by James Booth |
| 21 | Willa Cather | 2013 | Cather's Selected Letters |
| 22 | George Kennan | 2014 | Kennan's diaries |
| 23 | Isaiah Berlin | 2016 | Berlin's letters collected by Henry Hardy |
| 24 | Michael Oakeshott | 2015 | Oakeshott's philosophy and his Notebooks |
| 25 | John O’Hara | 2016 | O'Hara collection of short stories |
| 26 | F. Scott Fitzgerald, A Most Successful Failure | 2017 | Fitzgerald book by David S. Brown |
| 27 | Wolcott Gibbs | 2011 | New Yorker book by Thomas Vinciguerra |
| 28 | Evelyn Waugh | 2017 | Waugh biography by Philip Eade |
| 29 | J.F. Powers | 2013 | also a collection of his letters |
| 30 | Edward Gibbon | 2015 | Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall... |
| 31 | Herodotus | 2014 | |
| 32 | Tacitus | 2016 | |
| 33 | Encyclopedia Britannica - The Eleventh | 2016 | also book by Denis Boyles |
| 34 | Grammar | 2014 | also book by Nevile Gwynne |
| 35 | Clichés | 2015 | also It's Been Said Before by Orin Hargraves |
| 36 | Literary Rivals | 2015 | feuds of authors |
| 37 | Why Read Biography? | 2016 | |
| 38 | Sholem Aleichem | 2014 | also biography by Jeremy Dauber |
| 39 | Jokes: A Genre of Thought | 2017 | also books about Jewish humor |
| 40 | Jews on the Loose | 2016 | Marx Brothers |
| 41 | Jewish Pugs | 2018 | boxers and book by Mike Silver |
| 42 | Harry Golden | 2015 | Golden biography by Kimberly Hartnett |
| 43 | Gershom Scholem | 2017 | also book by George Prochnik |
| 44 | Dreaming of a Jewish Christmas | 2015 | |
| 45 | The Brothers Ashkenzai | 2009 | Singer 's 1934 work |
| 46 | Civilization of the Renaissance | 2013 | Burckhardt 's 1860 work |
| 47 | Montesquieu | 2016 | 1734 work Greatness of Romans |
| 48 | Machiavelli | 2016 | 1531 work Discourses on Livy |
| 49 | Gogol | 2013 | Gogol 's 1842 novel Dead Souls |
| 50 | Speak, Memory | 2014 | Nabokov 's 1951 memoir |
| 51 | Epictetus | 2016 | Discourses of Epictetus |
| 52 | H.W. Fowler | 2017 | 1926 Guide to English Usage |
| 53 | As a Driven Leaf | 2015 | Steinberg's 's 1939 novel |
| 54 | Joseph and His Brothers | 2012 | Mann 's multi-volume work |
| 55 | Life and Fate | 2007 | Grossman 's 1959 novel |
| 56 | Memoirs of Hadrian | 2010 | Yourcenar 's 1951 novel |
| 57 | Charnwood’s Lincoln | 2014 | Charnwood' s 1916 biography of Lincoln |
| 58 | Book of the Courtier | 2013 | Castiglione 's 1528 book |
| 59 | Ronald Syme | 2016 | Syme's 1939 book The Roman Revolution |
| 60 | Quest for Corvo | 2009 | Symons' biography of F. Rolfe |
| 61 | The Old Bunch | 2012 | Levin's 1937 novel |
| 62 | Life of Johnson | 2015 | Boswell 's 1791 biography |
| 63 | Hitting Eighty | 2017 | aging |
Introduction Part One: The Culture Part Two: Literary Part Three: Jewish Part Four: Masterpieces Part Five: Hitting Eighty
Reception
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]
References
- ^ a b Thornberry, Larry (October 13, 2020). "The Best Way to Take a Break From the Current Chaos". The American Spectator. Retrieved January 16, 2023.
- ^ Kurp, Patrick (August 26, 2020). "A Chance of Becoming a Bit Smarter". Anecdotal Evidence. Retrieved January 16, 2023.
Category:Essay collections
Category:Essays about culture
Category:Essays about literature