As an experienced biographer, Hermione Lee knows a hungry audience. “Readers of biography are greedy readers, with an insatiable appetite for detail and story,” writes the British scholar, a professor ...

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... CRITICISM: LIFE STORIES Essays in Biography by Joseph Epstein (Axios Press) Essayist Joseph Epstein is a writer whose flaws are difficult to separate from ...

Epstein (former editor of American Scholar and author of Gossip: The Untrivial Pursuit) brings an erudite gift for portraiture to the subjects of this volume’s 40 essays. Focused primarily on figures ...

Over a writing career of nearly four decades, Joseph Epstein has published various collections of what he likes to call “familiar essays,” usually on literary subjects. His agreeably approachable and ...

Joseph Epstein is one of the best essayists in contemporary American letters. A traditionalist who adopts a wary view of literary trends and personalities, he takes no prisoners when confronting ...

Four area students won a local essay competition, “2002 Biography of the Year National Scholarship Challenge,” conducted by Arts and Entertainment cable network and based on its “Biography” series.

More often than not I find myself both thoroughly annoyed with what Joseph Epstein is saying and happily amused by the way he is saying it. Essays in Biography, his latest collection, is no exception.