Theory I: The Methodology for Success

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Incredibly Useful

Useful and realistic

Excellent work - the best book to understand bond concepts

An indispensable tool to a fixed income trader or broker

Professionally written, and most of all PRACTICAL!!

The Bond Market: Trading and Risk Management
Christina I. Ray
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill Trade
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Popular Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Public Finance | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Bonds | Investing | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 1556232896

Book Description

The Bond Market is a thorough guide to the mechanics of the market for U.S. Treasury securities and their derivative products. It explains the art and science of trading bonds for maximum profit with controlled risk, and illustrates how the best traders apply sound theoretical techniques under battlefield conditions. This is a valuable resource for readers with no prior knowledge of the bond market as well as those who want to enhance their understanding of bond theory with real-life trading tools and techniques. Specific topics include: how traders use mathematics to construct positions, in bonds or their derivatives, suitable for different market conditions and their own market risks; how traders determine the value of different securities and answers the critical question: Is bond movement random or can it be forecast? the consistent approaches used by successful traders that readers can apply quantitatively to analyze the risk/reward profile of any position.

Customer Reviews:

Incredibly Useful.......2004-12-09

There are numerous books on the bond market. Many are so dense as to be opaque. Ray's book is very straightforward and simple. It gives you what you need to know about the fixed income markets in a direct fashion. Excellent for professional and academic alike.

Useful and realistic.......2002-12-29

Book is great for those who want to know how bond trading really works, especially for those just starting out. Good for both salespeople and traders. However, the book is a decade old and has little on ETS and other recent developments. It also has many, many errors which are irritating, thus the 4/5. I should hope that these points are addressed in a second edition. It is otherwise well-written.

Excellent work - the best book to understand bond concepts.......1999-05-09

Ms.Ray focuses on providing a clear conceptual framework for understanding fixed income concepts. The approach is highly intuitive and reader-friendly. A must for anyone trying to get to grips with the concepts of duration, BPV, vols, forwards, etc....

An indispensable tool to a fixed income trader or broker.......1999-01-15

The Bond Market, by Christina Ray was one of the first books I read about fixed income securities that really explained how trading really is in the real world. I am happy to find another copy on ADC. This was used as a text in a class in Grad. school and I lost the book. Highly recommended.

Professionally written, and most of all PRACTICAL!!.......1998-12-21

An extremely well written, concise and sometimes humorous explanation of how the bond market really works. I worked at the Chicago Board of Trade, and it is my opinion that Christina Ray truly understood the complexities and practicallities of the bond market in its entirety. A must read for anyone who thrives on information pertaining to getting the "edge" in an extremely competitive environment.

Trading Options For Dummies (For Dummies (Lifestyles Paperback))

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Trading Options For Dummies (For Dummies (Lifestyles Paperback))
Consumer Dummies
Manufacturer: For Dummies
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Book Description

Trading Options For Dummies, is for those investors who are curious about this exciting and popular form of investing.

Book Description

The papers in this collection are drawn from the annual The Supreme Court Review, which, since its inception in 1960, has been regarded by such legal scholars as Robert F. Drinnan, S. J., as "An indispensable, universally quoted work of the highest scholarship regarding the world's most influential tribunal." Now some of the most important contributions to the Review have been brought together in paperback editions that focus on issues that are becoming increasingly relevant to the ordinary citizen's daily life.

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Biology Success in 20 Minutes A Day (Skill Builders)
LearningExpress Editors
Manufacturer: LearningExpress, LLC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Biology | Biological Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books
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Calculus Success in 20 Minutes a Day (Skill Builders)

ASIN: 1576854833

Book Description

Written for both students who are new to biology and anyone who wants to refresh their knowledge, Biology Success teaches practical, essential skills in this subject in a quick, simple way, through a series of easy 20-step lesson plans.

Book Description

Seafloor surveying with acoustic remote sensing has become a powerful tool for researchers and professionals seeking knowledge about the structure and behavior of the seafloor. In particular, sidescan sonar is proving to be the preeminent technique, but its data is often difficult to interpret due to the physics of acoustic remote sensing, and to the varied geological processes at play. This not only presents all the fundamentals but also explains how to interpret sidescan sonar imagery and bathymetry. It fully epxlores the most recent advances, both in the technology and in the knowledge of marine structures, and provides deep insights for interpretation and decision-making. Broadly expanded and updated from the previous 1997 "Handbook of Seafloor Sonar Imagery", this handbook is indispensable to oceanographers, resource exploiters, telecommunications engineers, and marine researchers of all kinds.

Book Description

The quantum-mechanical few-body problem is of fundamental importance for all branches of microphysics and it has substantially broadened with the advent of modern computers. This book gives a simple, unified recipe to obtain precise solutions to virtually any few-body bound-state problem and presents its application to various problems in atomic, molecular, nuclear, subnuclear and solid state physics. The main ingredients of the methodology are a wave-function expansion in terms of correlated Gaussians and an optimization of the variational trial function by stochastic sampling. The book is written for physicists and, especially, for graduate students interested in quantum few-body physics.

Book Description

Joseph Epstein's sixth collection of personal pieces winningly and brilliantly rounds off his twenty-three-year tenure as editor of 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, aging, name-dropping, long books, pet peeves, talent vs. genius, Anglophilia, and surgery -- the head and the heart.

Customer Reviews:

Just the best.......2007-08-25

In the title essay of this collection Joseph Epstein takes a cruel, if comical look at what he sees when he emerges from the pool. He looks at his own aging body, and shows sympathy for his wife who has to sleep next to such a body, rather than to merely be 'in it' as he himself is. Age has not been kind, and relatively clean - living has not prevented the various saggings and shiftings of weight which are before him. As with his body so with many other aspects of life Epstein sees with a clear and tough eye many other aspects of reality. The focus in most of these essays is himself, his heart- bypass, his reactions to the for him less than wonderful change in the character of popular - music, the ins and outs of nap-taking, his disenchantment with much modern sport, his way of reading a book to the end now should it be at his age his last crack at reading it. Epstein is both a Bellow- like Chicago tough guy close to the sounds and sights of American life, and an intellectual of the first rank whose moral insights and musings have most often a foundation in solid good sense. He is one of those writers who I find it simply a great joy to read. And he is one of those essayists who like Montaigne in holding a mirror up to himself holds a mirror to mankind in general.
Just the best.

Not Going Gently.......2001-01-04

Epstein divides his essays into the literary and familiar. The former examine lives of writers and the lives of their books, while the latter are more personal and introspective along the lines of autobiography.

The recurrent theme in this latest crop is aging and death and I'm unclear on whether Epstein has decided to go gently. In one, he mourns the bodily changes that accompany maturity, in another the discomfort, physical and otherwise, associated with a heart bypass operation. We see him scan the obituary pages and sadly note the passing of friends. Perhaps if I were closer to Epstein's age, I would find these reflections less morbid. As things are, I doubt I can reach his degree of understanding in such matters, or do them justice, without having walked in his well-worn shoes.

There's a brief look at Epstein's friendship with Albert Goldman, who achieved a small bit of fame for his biographies of Elvis and John Lennon. Goldman emerges as a sad type, a hippie liberal still trying to be hip at an age when that word has no meaning. By contrast, Edward Shils, in a moving tribute, is shown to be a man devoted to the fundamental.

In his chatty way, Epstein treats us to more essays about lengthy books, name dropping, name-pronouncing, and napping. I'm especially fond of the last one, "The Art of the Nap." Albert Jay Nock wrote an essay called "The Art of Snoring," which suggested that the world's problems were usually caused by busy people who could not mind their own busy-ness. His prescription: more naps.

Is Epstein still at the top of his game? I'd say so.

Essayist Charms Again.......2000-01-19

Joseph Epstein is out of step with the times; so much the worse for the times. But you wouldn't expect one of our best essayists to share the hyperkinetic spirit of our quick-cut, crisis-of-the-week, information overload age, malnourished as it is on fast food and fast thought. Epstein's readers, used to his erudite and soothing literary voice, will conclude that he's, square peg or no, comfortable in the world. Epstein is a clear, deliberate thinker and graceful writer who won't be rushed. He knows his way around an idea, an anecdote, a philosophical question. He creates intimacy, interest, and assent without being the least polemical or didactic (see above re one of our best essayists), and demonstrates that as well as being useful, intelligence can also be a sheer joy. Narcissus Leaves the Pool -- the sixth essay collection of Epstein's 13 books - will only add to his reputation. The 16 pieces here repay the serious and the playful mind (if the same mind, so much the better). In his surefooted style -- serious but not solemn, humorous but never trivial, deep but always accessible. Epstein ponders what distinguishes a point of view from a grab-bag of opinions; shows how the role of popular music has changed in our lives; counts the ways professional sports offend these days, ("Watching Monica Seles play Arantxa Vicario, two players who grunt with every stroke, I feel that I am inside a hernia testing center.") and laments how hard it is for one who's loved the games to chuck the increasingly hard to justify habit; praises napping and disparages name dropping. He comes to terms with turning 60 in "Will You Still Feed Me." The title of the book and of the lead essay means to suggest the writer has reached an age where the preening and overreaching are done, where possibilities are relinquished. He's not exactly asking what to make of a diminished thing, but conceding that the future, while still pleasing at 61, is contracted. He's reached the age where when reading a good book he feels obligated to do a good job of it as it's unlikely he'll read that book again. An age where every trip to the doctor's office carries the real threat that the doctor will find what he has been poking around looking for these many years. Epstein admits squeamishness, but denies being a hypochondriac, "..only your normal thanatophobe." He ponders the question of how to maintain dignity in the physician's office. "While respecting what they do and realizing the need for them, I have tried to the best of my ability to steer clear of physicians. I find that, given a chance, they discover things I would rather not know about." Once such discovery led to one of life's experiences Epstein would have as soon skipped, heart surgery. He describes it in "Taking the Bypass." Epstein might not think to label himself a conservative. In part because the breathless clamors that fill political journals -- elections, legislative maneuvering, the routine changes of government -- do not interest him much. He's aware of the overall seriousness of politics, especially where it's very bad. He is friends with people who lost family in Hitler's death camps. But his principle concern is the with the workings of the human heart, not with the routine insolences of office. His skepticism regarding all Big Ideas and his rejection of all causes that individuals must be sacrificed in the name of put him, literary temperament and all, on the right side of the angels. A conservative in all but registration. Not one to diminish literature by hitching it to any ideological wagon, Epstein has no patience with tenured Philistines who flog their agendas with the literary masters. In "The Pleasures of Reading," he nails these villains. "What wide reading teaches is the richness, the complexity, the mystery of life.I have come to believe there is something deeply apolitical something above politics in literature, despite what feminist, Marxist, and other politicized literature critics might think. If at the end of a long life of reading the chief message you bring away is that women have had it lousy, or that capitalism stinks, or that attention must above all be paid to victims, then I'd say you just might have missed something." Epstein takes his reading seriously (though not solemnly, as you'll see). He's amused by profiles of people who list reading as a hobby. "I should as readily list under my hobbies, tennis, travel, and breathing." Epstein notices how few grownups there are these days and parses this matter in "Grow Up Why Dontcha." No accident that Seinfeld and Friends became so popular in the land of the perpetual adolescent. Role models in arrested development come with the substantial tuitions at America's colleges in the person of paunchy professors, certifiably past fifty, wearing blue jeans, hiking shoes, and even in some cases, God help us, backpacks. "In our own day one still sees what are essentially sixties characters in their fifties, walking the streets, tie-dyed, long-haired, sadly sandaled, neither grateful nor dead, waiting for the magic bus to the past." Epstein manages to combine literary insights of the literature professor (Northwestern) that he is -- you'll encounter Proust, Montaigne, T.S. Eliot, and Solzhenitsyn in these pages -- with the acute observations of the street smart Chicago boy he also is. You'll also run across Joe Montana, Mike Ditka ( I did say Chicago), Floyd Patterson, and former welter weight Carmen Basilio. Epstein delights in all precincts of Vanity Fair. Epstein, like your average French desert, is pretty rich stuff and probably is better read an essay or two at a time. Those who've read A Line Out For a Walk, Once More Around the Block, With My Trousers Rolled, or The Middle of My Tether know this already. It probably wouldn't do anyone actual harm to read an entire book of Epstein essays at one sitting. But why take a chance? Larry Thornberry - Tampa LTBerrywtr@aol.com

Epstein at his best........1999-06-23

Loved it. Have converted all my friends to Epstein enthusiasts

...and the nyads weep for they understand their loss........1999-06-23

The melancholy title of this book alone is enough to bring back memories of that bleak afternoon when I read in the pages of my newly arrived copy of the American Scholar that my longtime never-met friend Joseph Epstein would no longer pay his quarterly visit to my home. For months, I could not bring myself to finish the originally published Aristides essay in which he announces his leaving of the Scholar. I felt as though I had been told of the death of a long time boon companion. I later came to realize that Mr. Epstein had, in fact, not resigned but had been pushed out. Curses! Curses I proclaimed upon the American Scholar (those curses, by the way, still remain in effect; I vigorously renew them every change I get). Yet Mr. Epstein, gentleman scholar that he is, has to my knowledge, handled the insult with all the dignity that Mr. Emerson would have wished for in the last true editor of this now ill named journal. He wrote one of the most eloquent and distinctive essays of his career. The entire book resonates with the feeling of this one essay. Perhaps this was not intentional, perhaps it was. Certainly the coming storm was visible on the horizon. One could even say that Mr. Epstein was steeling himself against the opposing armies surrounding his outpost on a literary Masada. Such things can be seen in the distance and the soul can do nothing else but to arm and defend. Mr. Epstein was killed, in the literary sense. His editorial armor was stripped and his body was left for the academic carrion feeders. Yet he survives. Perhaps he will not regain an editorial position; quality does not seem to be in demand in these days of Miss Brown and her ilk. The fact that books of this sublimity, wit, and style are yet published truly astonishes one when the weekly best-seller lists are examined. We can only thank God that Mr. Epstein is still alive, writing, and occasionally published in such journals as the New Criterion, Commentary, and other publications of like erudition and taste. Read "Narcissus Leaves the Pool." Read it with the understanding that it is the last chapter in the life story of a once great journal. Read it with the knowledge that it is not "With My Trousers Rolled" or "A Line Out for a Walk," it more complex than either of those fine collections. Read it with the hope that you will be allowed into the thoughts, both idle and collected, of one of the last great essayists left in the world. You will not be disappointed.

Leaves Of Narcissus: A Modern Arabic Novel (Modern Arabic Literature)

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Leaves of Narcissus review
Insightful writing

Leaves Of Narcissus: A Modern Arabic Novel (Modern Arabic Literature)
Somaya Ramadan
Manufacturer: American University in Cairo Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 9774160584

Book Description

This novel of home and homelessness, of exile both physical and psychological, centers on Kimi, a fragile heroine suffering from a rift in her persona, unable to distinguish between her own pain and the pain of others. For Kimi it is not a simple case of to be or not to be, but rather of how to be in disjointed and contrary times. Leaves of Narcissus, like earlier Arabic novels about East-West encounters by male writers such as Tawfiq al-Hakim, Taha Hussein, and Tayeb Salih, is about a young Arab student going west in search of education. Here, though, the protagonist is a young woman and her destination is Ireland, a part of the West and at the same time a victim of the ravages of colonialism -adding ambiguity to the customary representations of the East-West dichotomy. In this captivating novel, Somaya Ramadan displays a rare virtuosity in evoking and interlacing literary motifs - from the popular to the learned, from the folk to the mythic, from the Egyptian to the Irish - and poses questions rather than answers, questions that hold a mirror to our selves.

Customer Reviews:

Leaves of Narcissus review.......2005-10-07

Somaya Ramadan cleverly and artistically creates the character of Kimi and her environment, first seemingly distant from that of the reader. As the book continues, the reader is faced with similarities to themselves and it no longer is the journey of Kimi, but a reflection of mankind. The ideal of an ideal world is shattered, I found in several places the author had put to words thoughts that had long been flying around in my own head. This book about inner and mental chaos I found to produce clarity.

Insightful writing.......2003-12-08

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. As an avid reader of literary fiction, I found Leaves of Narcissus to be the kind of book that I intentionally seek out to read. Not only did it challenge me as a reader, but it also resonated with me as a woman. Right from the very first lines, the book drew me in: "The moment before submission is the most difficult of moments. This might be the secret to its vital attractiveness-the irresistible finality of it... The chasm before you is featureless: absolutely new, wholly defiant to all powers of imagination" (1). Ramadan is so gifted in describing states of mental being. On the next page when she writes, "...annexing one hour until the next until slumber and nothingness become synonymous" (2), I thought of insomnia and also the urge to lose yourself in sleep-both of which come with depression. She returns to this idea on page 61, writing, "I'm not really resisting death-it's just that I fear the unknown. It's that moment of submission to the unknown. The moment of giving myself up is the only fear I have." I thought these lines applied not only to death, but also to how one feels before taking any great risk. There's a fear that goes along with the ability to see multiple possibilities. In Kimmi's case, she fears what comes after death because she has no concept of what that could be. This kind of fear could precipitate moments of joy, such as falling in love and giving birth, as well, though.

I could go on and on just quoting certain lines from the book because so many of them jumped out at me as being beautifully written and perfectly expressed. Maybe the reason that I enjoyed Leaves of Narcissus to the extent that I did is that I suffer from clinical depression and have a number of friends and family members who are also mentally ill. Therefore so much of Kimmi's struggle and fragmented identity was entirely familiar to me, but yet gave me a new understanding upon reading the novel.

The way that Ramadan picks up on the image of glass and carries it throughout the book was amazing to me. On page ten, after her father equates her mind to a rock, young Kimmi embraces her rock of a brain which is strong enough to shatter glass. Blood and glass enter the story again when Amna tells Kimmi the story of the King of Atlas Mountain (20). Also when Kimmi identifies the "large bell of thick glass" (27) that is surrounding her. I liked how this not only alluded to Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar, but also brought back the image of glass as fiercely strong and somewhat dangerous-much like Kimmi's mental state.

Another beautifully written line is on page 23, when Kimmi describes her condition as "[filtering] out all flattering, all hypocrisy, all sham, until nothing remains but the pure essence of irrefutable truth." When I read this line, I wanted to jump up and go find somebody else to share it with because it described a particular state of emotional being so well. It reminded me of the moment of utter depression and despair when you realize that the way you feel is the truth, and if you're able to feel something else, or something better, it is only a lie. Another line that, as a writer and a depressed individual, completely resonated with me is "All stories have already been told. All that can be said has already been said. There is no longer any truth, except in silence. Who cares about a story like this one?" (62). I often get discouraged when writing and think exactly the same thing. She returns on page 92 to these ideas of how "Life grows senile and can no longer be revived."

Finally, I would like to quote perhaps the most meaningful passage, for me. On page 108, Kimmi says,

All of us craft for ourselves those bells that protect us, and we huddle beneath
them for a spell until we begin to suffocate-and then we shatter the bell. If we
are lucky, we'll meet someone we can love, someone who will help us, and so the bonds are unraveled gently, and we do not notice until after we've noticed that we are breathing without watchful concern or worry.

As a metaphor, I found this to work very powerfully. Not only did it tie together the theme of glass throughout the story, but it also provided a sense of hope for Kimmi's future and thus, vicariously, our own futures as well.

I have no doubt that Somaya Ramadan wrote from personal experience. Her insights were too true and exquisite to be imagined. As a writer, I hope that someday I will be able to take my own experiences with mental pain and existential isolation and turn them into art as beautiful as Leaves of Narcissus.

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Narcissus Leaves the Pool

Narcissus Leaves the Pool
Joseph Epstein
Manufacturer: Mariner Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Classics | United States | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
General | Essays | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Classics | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0618872167

Book Description

As he has done in Snobbery and Friendship, Joseph Epstein again displays his dazzling wit and charm in these sixteen agile, entertaining essays. Here Epstein takes us from the amusingly personal to the broadly philosophical, demonstrating time and again his talent for taking nearly any subject and polishing it into a gem of sparkling wit and fascination. Among his targets this time are topics such as name-dropping, talent versus genius, the cult of youthfulness, and the information revolution.

Customer Reviews:

Narcissus Leaves the Pool.......2007-10-04

In Greek mythology, Narcissus was a young man who caught sight of his reflection in a pool of water and became enamoured with it. Over time he died of starvation and thirst because he was unable to leave off from gazing at his own beauty. Joseph Epstein's collection of essays, Narcissus Leaves the Pool, while not as in love with itself as Narcissus, uses Epstein's own conceits, interests and anecdotes on which to base essays with topics as diverse as name-dropping, the quality of sports in America, the pleasure of reading and, most poignantly, the final essay, which acts as an homage to Epstein's friendship with Edward Shils.

Memory clings to these essays, memory and the satisfaction of a life lived well. It may come as a surprise that this collection of essays, while almost entirely devoted to different aspects of Epstein's life, both professional and personal, does not in fact fall prey to the problem of Narcissus' endless gaze. Learning about those things in the world which annoy Epstein, or as he calls it, make him feel 'ticked to the min', learning of his love for the works of Henry James and Edward Gibbon, or reading about his uncomfortable triple bypass, comes as a pleasure thanks to his erudition and gently mocking style, the target of which is more often himself than any person, creed, institution or belief.

In these essays, Epstein hovers around his sixtieth birthday. He is seventy now, but it can be presumed safely that the relaxed looking backwards nature of his thoughts will have continued rather than reversed. Epstein seems comfortable that he has attained 'old man' status, or as comfortable as a person can be. 'Emerging from the shower,' he says, 'I stand naked in front of my bathroom mirror. This, let the truth be told, is not an altogether enrapturing sight.' Later, Epstein admits that if he were to ogle at women (a pass-time he says appeals less now than at any time since before puberty), he would be considered a dirty old man, rather than a vigorous male admiring an attractive woman. Sunrise, sunset.

If there is a theme beyond himself in this book, it would be reading. The essay 'A Real Page Turner' deals with the realisation that all of the grand, masterly tomes that exist in the world may not be read, ever. 'if one is committed to the reading life, if one has decided to think of oneself as a cultivated person, then there are certain lengthy books that one ought to have read.' He lists his own notable achievements - Proust, Gibbon, Tolstoy's War and Peace, Musil's The Man Without Quality, and then he discusses the massive works he has not and will unlikely ever, read. A later essay, 'The Pleasures of Reading,' is about just that. He admits to reading at least four or five hours each day, which to all fellow readers must sound heavenly.

Comparing this collection of essays to another of Epstein's, Friendship: An Expose, it is difficult not to notice the anecdotes repeated, the stories told twice now. But is that such a bad thing? Friendship possessed a tight, coherent theme, whereas Narcissus is allowed to roam with more freedom. Personal preference awards the gong to Narcissus, but that is based purely on the loving devotion to reading and books. It would, however, be remiss of me to avoid mentioning that there is overlap.

Epstein's voice is clear, unfrilled with gaudy baubles of metaphor or long strings of similes stretched together in an ever increasing line of confusion. He comfortably quotes Montaigne, James, Cather, Auden, Eliot and Gibbon, sliding sentences and paragraphs into the text which enhance but do not overwhelm. There is a sense that the author is confident and sure about what he is doing with his references and comparisons. They are not there merely to add luster to his writing, rather they add luster to his meaning. Epstein is also rather fond of his comedic skills. He mentions rather often that he is a witty author, and the text proves this claim correct. While he was not laugh out loud funny - to parlay an internet expression - Epstein was consistently clever, consistently witty, consistently entertaining on the page. These elements combine to relax the reader until they are in such a state that Epstein is able to do as he wishes with us, as it were.

The final essay, 'My Friend Edward', closes the book with an examination - no, more a celebration - of the friendship he shared with Edward Shils, a well known sociologist who died in 1995. They shared a friendship which spanned more than two decades. Epstein writes, 'In twenty-two years, we never ran out of things to say. My problem now is that I still have so many things to tell him.' Again, snippets of this essay will seem familiar to readers of Epstein's Friendship, but the purpose of the piece is different. Here he is calling up the memory of his friend in an effort to explain and examine just how much the older man meant to him. There is a tone of reverence and great respect attached to this essay, and the jokes are mostly gone. Coming to terms with the death of friends and loved ones is something, Epstein tells us, that a man in his sixties has to deal with greater regularity than a person in their twenties or thirties. Perhaps a cathartic exercise for the author, it is for the reader a beautiful snapshot of two intelligent literary men.

A collection of essays, then, that deal primarily with Epstein, but also with reading, loss, the decrease of health as one ages, the mystery of genius and talent, and napping on chairs. While the vast majority of topics and references, asides and jokes, may be directed towards the more literary or cultured audience, there is enough gentle humour, emotion and truth to appeal to any taste. Well recommended.

NARCISSUS LEAVES THE POOL FAMILIAR ESSAYS

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NARCISSUS LEAVES THE POOL FAMILIAR ESSAYS

Manufacturer: Houghton Mifflin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000GQJA9U

Narcissus Leaves the Pool: Familial Essays

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Narcissus Leaves the Pool: Familial Essays
Joseph EPSTEIN
Manufacturer: Houghton Mifflin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000UZSURA

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