Who is the greatest living essayist writing in English? Joseph Epstein
would surely be at the top of anybody's 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 Epstein's 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.