NEW YORK — Essays by Cynthia Ozick, a biography of Emperor Hirohito and a novel about two decomposing lovers were among the winners this week at the National Book Critics Circle Awards. Ozick, a ...

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 ...

Thomas Carlyle popularised the theory that the history of the world was but the biography of great men and that it was their genius and skill that won great men power. Many disagreed, including ...

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 ...

When I first interviewed Judith Jones in 1984 for a newspaper story about a book on New England cooking she and her husband, Evan, were working on, she let him do the talking. Fit and petite, Jones ...

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.