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Familiarity Breeds Content: New and Selected Essays
A collection of personal essays from America’s most revered essay writer, Joseph Epstein.
America’s 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.”
America’s 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.”
- GenresEssaysNonfiction
464 pages, Paperback
Published April 16, 2024
About the author
Joseph Epstein
107 books124 followersJoseph Epstein is the author of, among other books, Snobbery, Friendship, and Fabulous Small Jews. He has been editor of American Scholar and has written for the New Yorker, the Atlantic, Commentary, Town and Country, and other magazines.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
April 4, 2024
I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Some bits are more enjoyable than others, but this was a good read. Well written!
Some bits are more enjoyable than others, but this was a good read. Well written!
May 4, 2025
I've read an essay a week (roughly) for several months now. I will always marvel at how Epstein can write 50-word sentences that are perfectly clear.
May 22, 2024
This is a greatest hits selection of essays by Epstein over the last forty-five years. Most of them have been previously published in his ten or so volumes of collected essays. It was released at the same time as his recent autobiography.
Epstein is my favorite American essayist. His basic technique is to start with a broad subject. Sports, hats, smoking, envy, friendship, aging, and learning a foreign language are examples in this collection.
He takes the subject out for a walk. He tells stories from his years growing up in Chicago. He looks at what the great writers, wits and thinkers did and said about the subject. For example, in his essay on height he surveys short authors vs. tall authors. He tells stories from his years as an author and college professor. He also loves to drop names of the famous people he runs into. Saul Bellow is a buddy. He comes to tentative conclusions, but the trip is more important than the destination. He is also happy to share his quirks, prejudices and opinions.
He loves a well-turned sentence. In one of my favorites on "the Bookish Life" he says, "A great help in leading the bookish life is to recognize that as a reader, you might be omnivorous, but you can never be anywhere near omniscient." In the essay on fatness he explains, "I like my gluttons mildly obsessive but not compulsive."
He draws on a huge variety of literary examples, stories and quotes from Ancient Athens to modern New York City. He manages to do it without being stuffy. He just seems to good naturally make these connections.
One of the reasons I enjoy him so much is that many of his favorite sources, are favorites of mine. Samuel Johnson, Mencken, Chesterton, Orwell, Justice Holmes and Mark Twain are all enjoyed by both of us.
He does have the failing that all of us old guys who like to tell stories have. He repeats his favorite stories. We hear in two or three essays about what Pete the barber would say to him when he came in the morning to get a haircut, or what Evelyn Waugh said about his hemorrhoid operation, or what the French conductor Hervert von Karajan said when he got into a Paris taxi, or the job offer made to the village idiot of the shtetl of Frampol or where Harvey Wolfson, the Harvard philosopher, stored his books.
Epstein is proudly bookish. He tries hard to show that he is still a regular guy. He was an OK high school athlete. He has little patience with most intellectuals. He is a kid from Chicago, etc. But he is, at heart a book person and he is happy to defend his core belief that, "as addictions go, reading is among the cleanest, least harmful, easiest to feed, happiest."
Epstein is my favorite American essayist. His basic technique is to start with a broad subject. Sports, hats, smoking, envy, friendship, aging, and learning a foreign language are examples in this collection.
He takes the subject out for a walk. He tells stories from his years growing up in Chicago. He looks at what the great writers, wits and thinkers did and said about the subject. For example, in his essay on height he surveys short authors vs. tall authors. He tells stories from his years as an author and college professor. He also loves to drop names of the famous people he runs into. Saul Bellow is a buddy. He comes to tentative conclusions, but the trip is more important than the destination. He is also happy to share his quirks, prejudices and opinions.
He loves a well-turned sentence. In one of my favorites on "the Bookish Life" he says, "A great help in leading the bookish life is to recognize that as a reader, you might be omnivorous, but you can never be anywhere near omniscient." In the essay on fatness he explains, "I like my gluttons mildly obsessive but not compulsive."
He draws on a huge variety of literary examples, stories and quotes from Ancient Athens to modern New York City. He manages to do it without being stuffy. He just seems to good naturally make these connections.
One of the reasons I enjoy him so much is that many of his favorite sources, are favorites of mine. Samuel Johnson, Mencken, Chesterton, Orwell, Justice Holmes and Mark Twain are all enjoyed by both of us.
He does have the failing that all of us old guys who like to tell stories have. He repeats his favorite stories. We hear in two or three essays about what Pete the barber would say to him when he came in the morning to get a haircut, or what Evelyn Waugh said about his hemorrhoid operation, or what the French conductor Hervert von Karajan said when he got into a Paris taxi, or the job offer made to the village idiot of the shtetl of Frampol or where Harvey Wolfson, the Harvard philosopher, stored his books.
Epstein is proudly bookish. He tries hard to show that he is still a regular guy. He was an OK high school athlete. He has little patience with most intellectuals. He is a kid from Chicago, etc. But he is, at heart a book person and he is happy to defend his core belief that, "as addictions go, reading is among the cleanest, least harmful, easiest to feed, happiest."
June 2, 2024
Delicacies galore herein.
18…Letters, 1978. A pessimist doesn’t check his mail. I’m a Pollyanna perpetually aglow & atremble with optimism.
26… Justice Holmes’ letters virile and manly 30… Hate mail * / 35… Balls-up, 1981, juggling
40… Practicing: “A poem is never finished but only abandoned.” -Valery
80… Work is neither intrinsically dignified nor undignified; it is the people doing it who give it its character.
82… Leisure enforced is no leisure at all. (cf JKJerome: Idleness, like kisses, to be sweet must be stolen.)
108… Your true Good Guy should never give offense. (cf Wilde’s unintentionally give offense)
117… 7 friends, none hi-maintenance, all appreciate me.
127…Fat Man Struggles to Get Out Gourmand: someone who loves delicacies and plenty of ‘em. Liebling
144…Let my fat man loose upon the countryside? I cannot. I fear belly vengeance.
165… An older dude, 1986 … 176, Age has brought with it a loss of the capacity for adulation.
182… Fame … 195, Jewish hospital “Kings have lain here, and fabulous small Jews / And actresses whose legs were always news.” - Karl Shapiro
240… Quit smoking because afraid of dying any sooner than is absolutely necessary. No wish to give up my room in this comfortable and amusing resort even a minute before actual checkout time.
244… Ours is the first generation for whom hat-wearing is no longer de rigueur. Such hats as we wear tend to be slightly comic ones.
283… Envy those who understand that life is a fragile bargain, rescindable at any time, and live their lives accordingly.
289… Certain reading habits require a commensurate reading habitat. Books & magazines in every room.
296… Johnson was a fast and efficient reader. Began a book in the middle and if inclined, went back to the beginning. … Reading is a significant form of experience more efficient and pleasurable than actual experience, in some ways, eg, bridge: no waiting, no cross partners, no lost $, stop when you want, and can visit above your station.
310… Scene of boy riding the Black Stallion through the water. “I gulp, I gush, I am a goner.”
379… Edmund Wilson: Knowing that death is not far away makes earthly affairs seem unimportant. Surrounded by the void of the universe, we agitate ourselves to very dubious purpose.
387… Job of waiting at the village gate to greet the Messiah: Pay is not great, but the work is steady.
391… Montaigne: I may be a man of wide reading, but I am also a man of no retention.
425… Suggest support group for terminally ill mother? … “This is the kind of idiot I have for a son?”
18…Letters, 1978. A pessimist doesn’t check his mail. I’m a Pollyanna perpetually aglow & atremble with optimism.
26… Justice Holmes’ letters virile and manly 30… Hate mail * / 35… Balls-up, 1981, juggling
40… Practicing: “A poem is never finished but only abandoned.” -Valery
80… Work is neither intrinsically dignified nor undignified; it is the people doing it who give it its character.
82… Leisure enforced is no leisure at all. (cf JKJerome: Idleness, like kisses, to be sweet must be stolen.)
108… Your true Good Guy should never give offense. (cf Wilde’s unintentionally give offense)
117… 7 friends, none hi-maintenance, all appreciate me.
127…Fat Man Struggles to Get Out Gourmand: someone who loves delicacies and plenty of ‘em. Liebling
144…Let my fat man loose upon the countryside? I cannot. I fear belly vengeance.
165… An older dude, 1986 … 176, Age has brought with it a loss of the capacity for adulation.
182… Fame … 195, Jewish hospital “Kings have lain here, and fabulous small Jews / And actresses whose legs were always news.” - Karl Shapiro
240… Quit smoking because afraid of dying any sooner than is absolutely necessary. No wish to give up my room in this comfortable and amusing resort even a minute before actual checkout time.
244… Ours is the first generation for whom hat-wearing is no longer de rigueur. Such hats as we wear tend to be slightly comic ones.
283… Envy those who understand that life is a fragile bargain, rescindable at any time, and live their lives accordingly.
289… Certain reading habits require a commensurate reading habitat. Books & magazines in every room.
296… Johnson was a fast and efficient reader. Began a book in the middle and if inclined, went back to the beginning. … Reading is a significant form of experience more efficient and pleasurable than actual experience, in some ways, eg, bridge: no waiting, no cross partners, no lost $, stop when you want, and can visit above your station.
310… Scene of boy riding the Black Stallion through the water. “I gulp, I gush, I am a goner.”
379… Edmund Wilson: Knowing that death is not far away makes earthly affairs seem unimportant. Surrounded by the void of the universe, we agitate ourselves to very dubious purpose.
387… Job of waiting at the village gate to greet the Messiah: Pay is not great, but the work is steady.
391… Montaigne: I may be a man of wide reading, but I am also a man of no retention.
425… Suggest support group for terminally ill mother? … “This is the kind of idiot I have for a son?”
August 22, 2024
Joseph Epstein never disappoints. If most of the essays, anecdotes, and aphorisms (six times he alludes to my favorite, Somerset Maugham!) quoted here seemed familiar, it's because I have, over the years, read them in his earlier anthologies. Familiarity breeds contentment. And then some!
The essays vary in subject, but they all reveal the writer's witty, deadpan, usually curmudgeonly takes on the intellectual, literary life, and what accounts for taste in sports, music, haberdashery, hairpieces, facial hair (hirsute--a new word for me), cars, cuisine, even pets. Hoping to lead his kind of "bookish life" one day, I relished anything he had to say on books and reading, and somewhat appalled to realize he's a promiscuous reader; I can only read one book at a time. By the writer's reckoning, "every book you read is a book you don't read." By my reckoning, practically every book by Epstein is worthy of a re-reading.
There are 25 essays in all, laid out chronologically: the first 20 were written between 1978 and 1993, the last 20 between 2018 and 2023; cancel culture Nazis ought to note this, and spare themselves the ignominy of a certain cancel culture-conscious university's knee-jerk disclaimer in response to Mr Epstein's "misogyny," eliciting a WT(coital intensifier*) from this reader. (I would have forgotten that particular hill of beans episode, if I didn't see the book's short, one paragraph description "About the Author" on the last page. Thirty years he taught at that university, a fact he never bothered to nullify, despite their shabby treatment.) Yet another institution that "has to get rid of the bad taste of wanting to be in agreement with the many."**
* Blame Clifton Fadiman by way of Joseph Epstein for the phraseology.
** Ditto with Friedrich Nietzsche.
The essays vary in subject, but they all reveal the writer's witty, deadpan, usually curmudgeonly takes on the intellectual, literary life, and what accounts for taste in sports, music, haberdashery, hairpieces, facial hair (hirsute--a new word for me), cars, cuisine, even pets. Hoping to lead his kind of "bookish life" one day, I relished anything he had to say on books and reading, and somewhat appalled to realize he's a promiscuous reader; I can only read one book at a time. By the writer's reckoning, "every book you read is a book you don't read." By my reckoning, practically every book by Epstein is worthy of a re-reading.
There are 25 essays in all, laid out chronologically: the first 20 were written between 1978 and 1993, the last 20 between 2018 and 2023; cancel culture Nazis ought to note this, and spare themselves the ignominy of a certain cancel culture-conscious university's knee-jerk disclaimer in response to Mr Epstein's "misogyny," eliciting a WT(coital intensifier*) from this reader. (I would have forgotten that particular hill of beans episode, if I didn't see the book's short, one paragraph description "About the Author" on the last page. Thirty years he taught at that university, a fact he never bothered to nullify, despite their shabby treatment.) Yet another institution that "has to get rid of the bad taste of wanting to be in agreement with the many."**
* Blame Clifton Fadiman by way of Joseph Epstein for the phraseology.
** Ditto with Friedrich Nietzsche.
July 8, 2025
I love Joseph Epstein's essays and consider him the best working today. I particularly love when he's writing about reading, or books in general and his "The Novel, Who Needs It?" I consider a must read for anyone who enjoys reading novels. This collection of 25 essays--twenty "selected" and five "new" is not a disappointment. The previously published are somewhat a mixed bag depending on the reader's interest in the subject matter. I found the new essays top-notch and the ones on grief and books as good as any.
May 11, 2024
My admiration for Joseph Epstein goes back to when he was editor of The American Scholar and included one of his amazing familiar essays in every issue. He's still producing new work, but it's great to see some of his finest work from TAS collected in this book. If you haven't been introduced to Mr. Epstein, be sure to get this book and dive in. You won't regret it. Highly recommended.
August 6, 2024
This was my introduction to this sharply witty, and unabashedly snobby intellectual essayist. I knew nothing about him until I caught the GR review that he was the same Joseph Epstein who “exposed” Jill Biden in his WSJ piece for having the audacity to use the Dr. title when she was only an Ed D. Epstein is certainly a man of his generation and seems not to have been influenced by many women writers or philosophers given that he refers to many other intellectuals in these chronologically arranged essays, but fails to mention one woman until about 80% through, except to comment on Austen and Woolf in his essay on weight (both women being slim in build).
Say what you will about his conservative bent, this man can write and his beautifully crafted sentences are, (I imagine he would like to think) are on par with Proust, who he seems to hold up as the gold standard writer. And the similarities don’t end with his exquisite craftsmanship because Proust’s writing—all about Proust—compares to Epstein’s in that these are personal essays and the author is right upfront about that. Topics range from Jewish jokes to facial hair to cats to grief and smoking. In general, this collection is often brilliant and thought provoking, at times maddening. I laughed and I cringed, and in several spots I admired his courage to just put himself out there and expose his thoughts on the world he seems to thoroughly enjoy exploring.
Say what you will about his conservative bent, this man can write and his beautifully crafted sentences are, (I imagine he would like to think) are on par with Proust, who he seems to hold up as the gold standard writer. And the similarities don’t end with his exquisite craftsmanship because Proust’s writing—all about Proust—compares to Epstein’s in that these are personal essays and the author is right upfront about that. Topics range from Jewish jokes to facial hair to cats to grief and smoking. In general, this collection is often brilliant and thought provoking, at times maddening. I laughed and I cringed, and in several spots I admired his courage to just put himself out there and expose his thoughts on the world he seems to thoroughly enjoy exploring.
November 14, 2024
Witty and at times quite touching, Epstein is a marvelous writer for someone who describes himself as someone who "nothing has ever happened to" and hasn't "witnessed anything significant." His essay about the joys of work is especially good.
September 29, 2024
Witty as ever, and with some interesting advice. Most valuable for book recs. Would have said 5 stars, but a little meandering going on without some concision. Something was missing. But very good.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews