The best thing that can be said about this volume of Epstein's essays is that he usually chooses good subjects, and he quotes from their writings judiciously. This is not to say that Epstein always writes about well-documented writers; several of the pieces in this volume examine the achievements of nineteenth-century literary titans whose fame has faded with time. Epstein's other strength is that, while his writing is often fussy and over-cute (he frequently reads like an unfunny Calvin Trillin), he abjures jargon.

When it comes to originality of ideas or interpretation, however, the Epstein bag of tricks is empty. He takes an instant dislike to any writer whose politics don't toe the neo-con line; and he draws his findings from a demonstrably shallow series of researches. In writing the essay on Sydney Smith, for example, Epstein appears to have done no more than flick through the biographies of Hesketh Pearson and Peter Virgin. And while I approve of Epstein's championing of Henry James as a writer, I find his method -- a diary record of a class he taught, that opens with a series of glowing student evaluations -- bland and sometimes embarrassing. Lionel Trilling is insulted a few times by Epstein in the course of this collection, but any discriminating reader will find more illumination in a paragraph of 'The Liberal Imagination' than is present in the whole of 'Pertinent Players'.

Pertinent Players was where I discovered Joseph Epstein. His books are among the few that I can read and re-read and that continue to give me pleasure as the years pass. Possibly this is because the tone is friendly and conversational, while the judgments are precise without being cutting. Put simply, Epstein loves books, loves literature, and it is difficult not to share his enthusiasm. He is also one of the few critics I trust because he avoids falling into any of the traps of the contemporary critic or reviewer. That is, he has no ax to grind, no cause or movement to promote.

His method is to read, and re-read, the books by a particular author, preferably the entire corpus, before proceeding to write the essay. He looks for a defining characteristic to unlock his subject: Sidney Hook's pragmatism, for example, or Italo Svevo's pessimism. The essay then builds, occasionally with some suspense, to something like biographical detective work. Epstein rolls out one anecdote after another without condescending to amateur psychologizing.

His subjects in this collection include Robert Louis Stevenson, Henry James, H.L. Mencken, Carl Sandburg, Robert Hutchins, George Orwell, and H.W. Fowler & Ernest Gowers.

I have read my share of literary essays and book reviews. They are not the most stirring work known to man. But I can say with confidence that book lovers will derive much pleasure from Epstein's essays.

This is one of Joseph Epstein's earlier books, which makes some of its commentary out of date (hardcover edition, 1980). The grand subject of ambition has changed quite a bit over the past twenty years, and the contemporary reader may find Mr. Epstein's insights, though comprehensive in scope, behind the times. Although Epstein's historical anecdotes can be witty and original, the way in which he approaches the general subject of ambition unfortunately raises more questions than answers. If you are hoping for some meaningful self-help guidance from this volume, prepare to be both disappointed and further bewildered. (And if you are socialist--which I am not, incidentally--prepare to be insulted.)

The first chapters of the book lack a satisfactory pace, but it picks up during the second half. Epstein's take on the world of high American Society in the chapter on Edith Wharton is especially entertaining, and reads a lot like his current book, "Snobbery: The American Version." The subsequent chapter on F. Scott Fitzgerald, failure, and intergenerational downshifting is downright depressing. One detects a sharp note of disapproval from Epstein towards people who seek to simplify their lives by setting their career goals with modesty. Were he to write this chapter during the current epidemic of corporate scandal and societal Affluenza, I wonder if he would reach the same conclusions. The final chapter on Wallace Stevens extolls the virtues of a bourgeois man driven by immediate career satisfaction, but who still supplied time for poetry on the side. I was surprised to see Epstein write so glowingly about what seems to me as the dullest representative of ambition mentioned in his book.

In the end, the reader is left with a short epilogue that, again, fails to make much sense of the myriad of open questions that surface when contemplating the role of ambition in one's life. Epstein's buried thesis, that ambition does not deserve the scorn it often receives, just doesn't provide enough specifics about the degree and nature of today's laudable goals to be of any real use. As disagreeable as I found this book, I stuck through its 300 pages to discover only a handful of noteworthy passages. The scattered gems within the book's pages are worth reading, but as for the vast remainder, just skim it. You can find better examples of the author's writing in his articles in "The New Yorker" and "Commentary."