Appreciation …

… Anecdotal Evidence: 'A Chance of Becoming a Bit Smarter'. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

At age eighty-three, Epstein remains our most entertaining, wide-ranging, industrious, learned practitioner of both familiar and critical essays. In his hands, the distinction between the two forms is hardly worthy of notice. Like most of the best essayists, he is a utility player, broadly curious and  competent. His interest in books and his fellow humans has never dimmed. Sadly, Epstein, that most congenial of men, has come to look like what Ishmael calls, speaking of the Pequod’s crew, an “isolato.”