Narcissus leaves the pool -- An extremely well informed SOB -- I like the Gershwin tune -- The art of the nap -- A nice little knack for name dropping -- So to speak -- A real page-turner -- Ticked to the min -- Trivial pursuits -- What's in it for the talent? -- The pleasures of reading -- Will you still feed me? -- Anglophilia, American style -- Taking the bypass -- Grow up, why dontcha? -- My friend Edward.

Joseph Epstein's sixth collection of personal pieces winningly and brilliantly rounds off more than two decades of his writing under the name Aristides for The American Scholar. "The trick with these essays," he recently wrote, "is to take what seems a small or mildly amusing subject and open it up, allow it to exfoliate, so that by the end something arises that might be larger and more intricate than anyone -- including the author -- had expected." Among the things that arise here are naps, Gershwin, name-dropping, long books, growing older, talent versus genius, Anglophilia, and surgery. These are essays about the head and the heart

Joseph Epstein's sixth collection of personal pieces winningly and brilliantly rounds off more than two decades of his writing under the name Aristides for The American Scholar. "The trick with these essays," he recently wrote, "is to take what seems a small or mildly amusing subject and open it up, allow it to exfoliate, so that by the end something arises that might be larger and more intricate than anyone -- including the author -- had expected." Among the things that arise here are naps, Gershwin, name-dropping, long books, growing older, talent versus genius, Anglophilia, and surgery. These are essays about the head and the heart