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First Anthology: Thirty Years of the New York Reviews of Books
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345 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
About the author
Barbara Epstein
21 books5 followersBarbara Epstein (née Zimmerman) was an American literary editor and founding co-editor of The New York Review of Books.
Epstein, née Zimmerman, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to a Jewish family, and graduated from Radcliffe College in 1949. In 1953, she and editor Jason Epstein began a marriage that lasted 37 years.
Epstein rose to prominence as the editor at Doubleday of Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl, among other books. She next worked at Dutton, McGraw-Hill, and the Partisan Review. During the New York newspaper strike of 1963, Barbara and Jason Epstein, together with friends Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Hardwick, founded the biweekly magazine The New York Review of Books, which Barbara called "the paper". She and Robert B. Silvers became the editors. Barbara Epstein remained at the New York Review of Books as an editor for 43 years.
The Epsteins divorced in 1990; Barbara Epstein lived with journalist Murray Kempton until his death in 1997. She continued in her editing until shortly before her death.
Epstein, née Zimmerman, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to a Jewish family, and graduated from Radcliffe College in 1949. In 1953, she and editor Jason Epstein began a marriage that lasted 37 years.
Epstein rose to prominence as the editor at Doubleday of Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl, among other books. She next worked at Dutton, McGraw-Hill, and the Partisan Review. During the New York newspaper strike of 1963, Barbara and Jason Epstein, together with friends Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Hardwick, founded the biweekly magazine The New York Review of Books, which Barbara called "the paper". She and Robert B. Silvers became the editors. Barbara Epstein remained at the New York Review of Books as an editor for 43 years.
The Epsteins divorced in 1990; Barbara Epstein lived with journalist Murray Kempton until his death in 1997. She continued in her editing until shortly before her death.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 14, 2023
Among the highlights here: A Buddhist Poet in Vietnam/Thich Nhat Hanh, Last Christmas of the War(in Auschwitz)/Primo Levi, On Photography/Susan Sontag & Bruce Chatwin’s chilling portrait of novelist Ernst Junger=German officer>occ Paris; also quite good: A Day@the White House(’65 LBJ arts fest)/Dwight Macdonald, How I Came to Dissent/Sakharov, Love of Flying(& Amelia Earhart)/Gore Vidal, Oliver Sacks recalls how panic>broken leg@Norway mtn top, Eliz Hardwickt>’66 Watts riots(LA), Hannah Arendt/Reflections on Violence, Joan Didion/in El Salvador, Pierre Boulez>Mahler, Isaiah Berlin>Alexander Herzen & Jonathan Lieberson>Karl Popper, The Rise of Andy Warhol/Robt Hughes
November 15, 2014
There are times when great magazines and periodicals are condensed as this one is to view thirty years of work. This is a mammoth task and at times it should be left undone. The NYRB is a stellar publication but like any versatile publication- Nature, Scientific America, National Geographic - there are in most issues stories that just don't grasp our interest. That's where this book falls for me. I enjoyed the piece on Balzac but the rest were marginal and some downright dull.
January 9, 2009
An impressive list of contributors. I think NYRB is still one of the best journals about literature and the arts around. Robert Lowell, Hannah Arendt, Igor Stravinsky, W.H.Auden, Susan Sontag, Isaiah Berlin, Joseph Brodsky, Bruce Chatwin, and Joan Didion are just some of the authors anthologized here.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews