conclusion leukemia essay

Introduction to Leukemia

Leukemias are cancers of the blood -forming tissues. White blood cells may be produced in excessive amounts and are unable to work properly which weakens the immune system .

The blood is made up of fluid called plasma and three types of cells and each type has special functions. White blood cells (also called WBCs or leukocytes) help the body fight infections and other diseases. Red blood cells (also called RBCs or erythrocytes) carry oxygen from the lungs to the body's tissues and take carbon dioxide from the tissues back to the lungs. The red blood cells give blood its color. Platelets (also called thrombocytes) help form blood clots that control bleeding.

Blood cells are formed in the bone marrow , the soft, spongy center of bones. New (immature) blood cells are called blasts. Some blasts stay in the marrow to mature. Some travel to other parts of the body to mature.

Normally, blood cells are produced in an orderly, controlled way, as the body needs them. This process helps keep us healthy. When leukemia develops, the body produces large numbers of abnormal blood cells. In most types of leukemia, the abnormal cells are white blood cells. The leukemia cells usually look different from normal blood cells, and they do not function properly.

Each year, leukemia is diagnosed in about 29,000 adults and 2,000 children in the United States.

In both men and women, leukemia incidence is highest among whites and lowest among Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans. The incidence in men is about 50% higher than in women for all racial/ethnic groups except Vietnamese, among whom the male rates are only slightly higher. Ethnic differences in the incidence rates are small in the youngest adult age group (30-54 years), but become more evident in each of the older age groups. It is found that childhood leukemia rates are highest among Filipinos, followed by white Hispanics, non-Hispanic whites and blacks.

53 Leukemia Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🏆 best leukemia topic ideas & essay examples, 🎓 most interesting leukemia topics to write about, 🔎 good research topics about leukemia.

• The Role of hnRNPs in Acute Myeloid Leukemia Blood and lymph are tissues of mesenchymal origin, which consist of plasma and corpuscles suspended in it and form the internal environment of the body.
• Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia and Nutritional Influences A complete blood count is used to determine the precise number of each blood cell type in an individual, whereas a peripheral blood smear is used to determine alteration in the appearance and mobility of […] We will write a custom essay specifically for you by our professional experts 808 writers online Learn More
• Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, Its Prevalence and Incidence The purpose of this paper is to present the first part of the case study by describing the disease’s pathophysiology, treatment options, prevalence, and incidence.
• Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia: Causes, Origin, and Gene Mutation Apart from analyzing chromosome abnormalities present in patients with ALL, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the disorder’s origin, including primary causes and the process of gene mutations.
• Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia and Granulocytosis: Causes and Treatment The accumulation of the underdeveloped stem cells impairs the functioning of the blood cells resulting in such diseases as cancer. This is because white blood cells are part of the immune system and help fight […]
• Acute Myeloid Leukemia: Genetic Features of Black Patients According to the researcher, the differences in the biological impact of disease and the socioeconomic factors play a crucial role in the disparity between the Blacks and the Whites in the recovery process.
• Leukemia: Causes, Pathogenesis, Morphological Changes, Basic Management Studies are ongoing to establish the exact cause of the disease, which is still unknown according to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.
• Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia in Adult Patients Acute lymphocytic leukemia is the cancer of the blood and the bone marrow. The final type of lymph cells is natural killer cells whose role in the body is to nullify the effect of cancerous […]
• Quality of Life in Chronic Leukemia Patients This causes the associated symptoms of the chronic disease like anemia, frequent bleeding episodes which is hard to stop due to lack of platelets, and persistent infections as a result of the low immunity status […]
• Leukemia Types: Characteristics, Genetics, and Symptoms Leukemia is widely referred to as a group of blood cancers and is classified by the type of white blood cells and by the rate of disease progression over time.
• Ethics of Leukemia Treatment With Disabled HIV Cells In recent years, the medical community has pondered the radically new approach to cancer treatment, which is isolating and collecting T-cells from the patient.
• Acute Lymphocytic and Myelogenous Leukemia in Children The cancer of the early blood-forming cells that develop in the bone marrow is termed leukemia. This paper briefly discusses the environmental risk factors involved in acute lymphocytic or acute myelogenous leukemia.
• Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia and Immunoglobulin M The purpose of the study is to correlate CLL and IgM to understand the role of IgM in the manifestation and development of the disease.
• Acute Erythroblastic Leukemia: Dermatological Manifestations
• Myeloid Leukemia: Chemo-Resistance Is Mediated by E-selectin
• Lymphoblastic Leukemia in Childhood: Living after the Chemotherapy
• Cardiovascular System: Leukemia Cancer (Cancer of the Blood)
• Cadherins, Selectins, and Integrins in CAM-DR in Leukemia
• Lymphoblastic Leukemia: Treatment And Psychosocial Support
• Stem Cell Transplantation is Feasible in Patients with Leukemia
• Challenges of CAR T-Cell Therapy for Lymphoblastic Leukemia
• Relationship Between Leukemia and Ionizing Radiation
• Chemotherapy and Leukemia: Cell Death Between Immunogenicity and Immunotolerance
• Leukemia: Everyone Has Heard of Cancer
• Child with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia: Nursing Theory Application
• Myeloid Leukemia: Defining and Treating Older Adults
• Myeloid Leukemia and Hepatoblastoma: Two Cancer Models to Link Metabolism to Stem Cells
• Global, Regional, and National Burden of Chronic Myeloid Leukemia
• Myeloid Leukemia (AML): From Genes to Models Toward Targeted Therapeutic Intervention
• Lymphoid Leukemia: Treatment and Psychosocial Support
• Distinguishing Between the Chronic Forms of Leukemia
• Detection and Molecular Characterization of Bovine Leukemia Virus
• Chronic Lymphatic Leukemia: Therapeutics Market Size, Share, Analysis, and Forecasts
• Immunoregulatory Effects of Azelaic Acid Against Myeloid Leukemia
• Emerging Epigenetic Therapeutic Targets in Acute Myeloid Leukemia
• Interferon Treatment for Leukemia
• Exploiting Necroptosis for Therapy of Lymphoblastic Leukemia
• New Medication Has Potential to Destroy Leukemia
• Front-Line Therapy for Elderly Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia Patients
• Adult T-Cell Leukemia: Analysis of the First Large-Scale Nationwide Survey
• Chronic Myeloid Leukemia Patients Voice about the Experience of Treatment
• Global Leukemia Therapeutics: Treatment Market Growth and Trends 2015 – 2025
• Compare and Contrast: Acute and Chronic Leukemia
• Leukemia: Molecular Therapeutic Approaches
• Interactions Between Gut Microbiota and Acute Childhood Leukemia
• Chemical Surveillance Program for Leukemia
• Leukemia: Natural Killer Cells Offer Differential Protection
• Leukemia: Cancer and Bone Marrow Transplants
• How Leukemia Affects the Life of Everyone Around
• Myeloid Leukemia (AML): from Biology to Clinical Practices through Development
• Modeling the Leukemia Microenvironment
• Monitoring Myeloid Leukemia: How Molecular Tools May Drive Therapeutic Approaches
• Allogeneic Embryos Dysregulate Leukemia Inhibitory Factor
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Home — Essay Samples — Nursing & Health — Leukemia — An Overview Of Leukemia – Blood Cancer

An Overview of Leukemia - Blood Cancer

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Leukemia - Free Essay Examples And Topic Ideas

Leukemia, a type of cancer that affects the blood and bone marrow, poses significant medical and emotional challenges for patients and their families. Essays could delve into the various types and stages of leukemia, exploring the causes, symptoms, and treatment options available. The discourse might extend to the medical advancements in leukemia research, discussing the progress made in developing effective treatments and improving patients’ quality of life. Discussions could also focus on the emotional and psychological impacts of leukemia on patients and their families, exploring the coping strategies and support systems available. Moreover, essays could explore the broader implications of leukemia on healthcare systems, discussing the economic costs, healthcare policies, and the importance of public awareness and early detection in managing leukemia and improving patient outcomes. A substantial compilation of free essay instances related to Leukemia you can find at PapersOwl Website. You can use our samples for inspiration to write your own essay, research paper, or just to explore a new topic for yourself.

What is Leukemia?

Leukemia is defined as a general term referring to a specific group of malignant disorders. These disorders affect the blood and blood-forming tissues of the lymph system, bone marrow, and spleen. Most often, leukemia is a cancer of the white blood cells, but some specific types can start in other blood cell types. There are several types of leukemia, which branch off based on whether the leukemia is acute or chronic, and on whether it begins to form in myeloid […]

Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL)

Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) is a type of cancer in which the bone marrow makes too many lymphocytes (8). ALL can progress quickly and can spread from the bone marrow into the bloodstream, which consequently can spread to other areas such as the lymph nodes, central nervous system, liver, spleen, and testicles in males (4). Symptoms of ALL may include fever, fatigue, loss of appetite, pain in bones or abdomen, easy bruising, and painless lumps in neck, groin, underarm, or […]

Flucoazole Prophylaxis

Abstract: Infection is the most common cause of morbidity and mortality associated with current ALL treatment. Although antifungal drug is more commonly used in adults with leukemia, its use in children is controversial due to insufficient evidence of effectiveness and concerns about its potential antimicrobial resistance. The use of drugs to prevent fungal infections may lead to cognitive impairment in children1. In this study, we used resting functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and Partial least squares (PLS) methods to compare […]

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Childhood Leukemia

Leukemia is the most common cancer among children up to age fifteen. There are two main subtypes that affect this age group: acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), the most common subtype, and acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a rather rare subtype. There are multiple phenotypes that are precursors to a child being diagnosed with ALL. B-cell precursor ALL is the predominant phenotype occurring mostly in children ages two to five, and the less common precursor is T-cell phenotype. There are different cytogenetic […]

Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia

Chronic lymphocytic leukemia is a type of blood cancer that originates from the bone marrow and circulates in the blood stream. The bone marrow is a spongy material that lives inside a person's bones and is responsible for making all types of blood cells including white blood cells, red blood cells, and platelets. In chronic lymphocytic leukemia, the bone marrow functions normally, but the cancer cells also live there. Patients can develop low platelets and low red blood cells if […]

Biology: Mitosis, or Cell Division

Mitosis, or Cell division, happens (or occurs) when a cell goes through multiple stages, known as the cell cycle, and as the cell goes though each stage, the cell eventually divides and produces two identical daughter cells. The main purpose of Mitosis (or Cell division) is to produce and grow cells that make the human body function properly. This organized process is highly essential for replacing old and worn out cells, tissue growth, development, and extremely important for tissue repair […]

Molecular Mechanisms of Acute Myeloid Leukemia and AML Treatments

Cancers such as leukemia and lymphoma are hematologic diseases that affect millions of Americans each year. Specifically, acute myeloid leukemia, which is also known as AML, is considered to be one of the most frequently occurring types of leukemia and is a major cause of mortality in the United States. Acute myeloid leukemia is infamous for being challenging to treat, due to the capability of the cells forming resistance to treatment. Therefore, it is critical to understand the molecular mechanisms […]

Essay about Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia

Abdominal pain and discomfort is a symptom that is commonly associated with CLL and is often experienced by patients. Such pain and discomfort is caused by the enlargement of the affected organs compressing onto other nearby organs and tissues. For instance, due to the enlargement of the spleen it may compress the stomach to the extent that the individual may experience the sensation of satiety or fullness. Consequently, this causes various levels of discomfort and may contribute to subtle weight […]

Access of Care in the World for Leukemia

Introduction Leukemia is a hematological malignancy that attacks the white blood cells and affects the bone marrow and the lymphatic system. Adult Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) is an aggressive type of leukemia characterized by the existence of excessive numbers of lymphoblast or lymphocytes in the bone marrow and peripheral blood. (Bhatnagar, N., Quereshi, A. 2017). "This disease has an elevated mortality rate with a five-year survival of 30% to 45% in developed countries". (Bhatnagar, N., Quereshi, A. 2017. p491). However, […]

Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia is a disease process that effects the healthy production of white blood cells. The purpose of white blood cells is to provide protection from infection and development of disease. It is when the collaboration of vast amounts of immature white blood cells crowd the bone marrow forcing out the normal white blood cells, is when this disease process begins its attack in the human body. ALL is a common type of childhood cancer, most often occurring in […]

Leukemia is an Abnormal Progressive Malignant Disease

Leukemia is an abnormal progressive malignant disease of immature hematopoietic cells in the bone marrow. The bone marrow and other blood producing organs are found to produce high numbers of immature or abnormal leukocytes. The production of normal blood cells is inhibited which leads to anemia and other symptoms. Leukemia is classified as being either myeloid or lymphoid and then classified as acute or chronic depending on the rate of cell differentiation. (Huether, McCance 2014) Acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) is […]

Feline Leukemia Virus FeLV

Feline Leukemia Virus was first described in cats in 1964. The first diagnostic test became available in 1973, which led to a "test and elimation" regime, dramatically reducing the number of infected cats in the general population. Feline Leukemia Virus also known as FeLV is a retrovirus that infects cats. Ret-ro-vi-rus is a type of RNA virus that inserts a copy of its genome into the DNA of a host cell that it invades, thus changing the genome of that […]

Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia Treatment

To some he was a son, others a brother and a friend. He never got to be a father or the world's greatest uncle, but he left this world with people always remembering the name Michael James Fox. In was the winter of 1973, a three-year-old boy was diagnosed with ALL. All this little boy wanted was to live his life to its fullest potential, even though everyday was a struggle for him. At the end of his rough eighteen […]

Leukemia in Children

In 1845, a malignant cancer in the blood was discovered. This cancer was and still is known as Leukemia. Scientists and doctors were baffled with what the new science and were uncertain how to treat the condition. Some called this new discovery an “overabundance of white corpuscles in the blood,” while others said the patient suffered from a “grave blood disease.” The new discovery, Leukemia, has since spread worldwide and affects a multitude of different demographics and a cure has […]

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Gannett hits pause button on its promise to restaff its smallest papers

Outlets with few or no staff members likely to stay that way for a while

For most of 2023 year and all of 2024 so far, Gannett has promised that it is working to add hundreds of new editorial positions , backfilling the many openings that were lost after a December 2022 hiring freeze, then growing further.

The pledge includes restaffing many of the chain’s smallest dailies, ones that have been languishing with one or no locally based journalists as more profitable metros get attention and resources.

Chief Content Officer Kristin Roberts said of the new approach in Gannett’s quarterly earnings call with analysts:

“Last year, we launched an initiative with the conviction that putting reporters into our smallest newsrooms was critical, but not enough on its own to be sustainable.

We needed to experiment with new ways of engaging hometown readers at a small-site scale. Our reporters combined first-person voice with a newsletter approach that invited readers to join them in experiencing their community firsthand, the results were remarkable and gave us the confidence to boldly expand this strategy.”

There was a notable omission, though.

Roberts didn’t say that the company hit the brakes on hiring for that key small newsroom position three months earlier.

The people already on board in the beta version of what Gannett calls the I-30 Initiative could stay. Authorizations to proceed with other hires stopped.  Some candidates who were expecting to start soon have had the offer rescinded. According to internal communications, the “pause” has now been rolled over through the second quarter.

Roberts declined my request for an interview. The next quarterly earnings report is Thursday, and she may or may not offer an update.

The I-30 jobs (so called because they were approved for 30 markets) are unusual ones, defined after a protracted planning process through last summer. Journalists, well paid at roughly $50,000, are being hired on one-year contracts rather than as full-time employees. They must physically work in the target communities.

Their job is to establish a local news presence in cities that have been getting only a thin trickle of hometown content. A particular emphasis, as Roberts said, is creating newsletters, now a primary way in the industry to get samples of coverage to the target audience and capture email addresses of potential paid digital subscribers.

A community division editor who alerted me to the pause said it has created chaos for people like her. (She asked for anonymity in hopes of keeping her job).

Editors, spread thin and scrambling to oversee several papers at once, are not getting the relief they’d anticipated, she said. Identifying I-30 candidates in October and November proved difficult, given the lack of assurance they would be hired permanently.

Plus, from the management perspective of regional editors who hire one level down, they cannot be sure that a position that comes open as an editor moves on or is fired can be filled.

With approvals on hold, “the solution for all these ghost newsrooms is put off indefinitely,” my source said.

Though the number of hires involved is modest, and Gannett continues to spend on growing news staff at its metros , I think there is a context that makes it a bigger deal.

For the better part of a decade, Gannett has been open about bigger newspapers, particularly in an era pivoting from print to digital, being the  best prospects for revenue and profit growth.

The metro division used to hold its annual planning retreat at Poynter and  allowed me to sit in to better understand the company’s editorial strategy. I was told on background by one of the participants that even papers with no news staff contributed welcome revenue and a little profit

Continuing to publish papers with next to no local content has seemed like a sham to analysts like me and market-by-market data expert Penny Abernathy. I first wrote specifically about a Gannett ghost newspaper four years ago — this one in Ithaca, New York, a town with two major universities, that was down to a single local reporter. I got the explanation that metros proportionately generate more revenue and profits.

So, it seemed welcome evidence of journalistic commitment when Roberts’  extensive package of initiatives for her first year at Gannett included a good faith effort to put a better news report in front of its small and midsized town readers.

I’m hoping, even betting, that the I-30 program and other reinvestments resume. But for right now, the community papers have again taken their position in the back of the line for Gannett.

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State budget shortchanges community colleges like Suffolk County CC

The new budget holds state operating aid to community colleges like Suffolk County Community College in Brentwood flat for the fifth consecutive year, ignoring the increase in inflation. Credit: Newsday/Alejandra Villa Loarca

This guest essay reflects the views of E. Christopher Murray, a partner at Uniondale-based law firm Rivkin Radler and chairman of Suffolk County Community College’s board of trustees.

Community colleges have been an economic lifeline for many New York residents. The New York state budget passed last month, however, imperils the viability of these institutions.

Community colleges provide a gateway to better jobs and higher education for students who might not otherwise have those opportunities. For example, more than 500 members of Suffolk County Community College’s student body are veterans trying to establish a career path after their service. SCCC’s students come from diverse backgrounds and often are the first generation of their family to go on to higher learning. Add to that single parents and those who can go to school only part time because they must work, and it is clear that community colleges serve a very important function.

Despite this, the new budget holds state operating aid to community colleges flat for the fifth consecutive year, ignoring the increase in inflation. By comparison, the four-year schools in the State University of New York system received an aid increase of approximately $150 million.

As a result of the lack of increase in state aid, Suffolk County Community College is suffering from budget deficits which can only be closed through tuition increases or cutting programs. This year, Suffolk is seeking to raise tuition by 3.4% after raising tuition last year by 3.1%, a hardship for many of our students and their families, and has managed costs through a retirement incentive program for employees. As has been reported, Nassau Community College is seeking a broad reorganization of its educational programs which is strongly opposed by faculty and some students.

It's true that SCCC’s enrollment has declined due to a 10.5% decrease in Suffolk County’s high school enrollment. In an effort to curb this decline, SCCC has diversified its programs to not only appeal to those students seeking to obtain a two-year degree before advancing to four-year institutions, but also to nontraditional students looking to obtain a skill so they can immediately enter the workforce. SCCC has adopted a variety of innovative programs from automotive technician certification to training the work force to work on offshore wind farms. As a result, SCCC’s enrollment increased by 2% last year.

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The governor and the State Legislature point to the continuation of floor funding, which ensures that a community college will not see a reduction in its gross amount of aid over the previous year. While this helps institutions whose enrollment is declining by spreading the same aid across fewer students, it punishes colleges like Suffolk — the largest community college in New York with more than 20,000 students across three campuses — which have turned the enrollment decline around.

While state law requires state aid to make up a third of a community college’s budget, state aid only amounts to about 25% of SCCC's budget. SCCC’s local sponsor, Suffolk County, also falls short of the one-third mandate but has increased its aid to the school every year, helping to keep tuition flat in previous years.

Community college students are among the most hardworking, and it is time that the state values these schools appropriately. While an increase in state aid will not occur this year, our elected state representatives should prioritize increasing funding to the state’s community colleges during the next fiscal cycle.

This guest essay reflects the views of E. Christopher Murray, a partner at Uniondale-based law firm Rivkin Radler and chairman of Suffolk County Community College’s board of trustees.

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A Culture Warrior Takes a Late Swing

The editor and essayist Joseph Epstein looks back on his life and career in two new books.

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By Dwight Garner

NEVER SAY YOU’VE HAD A LUCKY LIFE: Especially If You’ve Had a Lucky Life , by Joseph Epstein

FAMILIARITY BREEDS CONTENT: New and Selected Essays , by Joseph Epstein

When Tammy Wynette was asked to write a memoir in her mid-30s, she initially declined, she said in an interview, because “I didn’t think my life was over yet.” The publisher responded: Has it occurred to you that in 15 years no one might care? She wrote the book. “Stand by Your Man: An Autobiography” (1979) was a hit.

The essayist and editor Joseph Epstein — whose memoir “Never Say You’ve Had a Lucky Life,” is out now, alongside a greatest-hits collection titled “Familiarity Breeds Content” — has probably never heard Wynette sing except by accident. (In a 1993 essay, he wrote that he wished he didn’t know who Willie Nelson was, because it was a sign of a compromised intellect.) But his memoir illustrates another reason not to wait too long to commit your life to print.

There is no indication that Epstein, who is in his late 80s, has lost a step. His prose is as genial and bland, if comparison to his earlier work is any indication, as it ever was. But there’s a softness to his memories of people, perhaps because it was all so long ago. This is the sort of memoir that insists someone was funny, or erudite, or charismatic, while rarely providing the crucial details.

Epstein aw-shucks his way into “Never Say You’ve Had a Lucky Life” — pretending to be self-effacing while not being so in the least is one of his salient qualities as a writer — by warning readers, “I may not have had a sufficiently interesting life to merit an autobiography.” This is because he “did little, saw nothing notably historic, and endured not much out of the ordinary of anguish or trouble or exaltation.” Quickly, however, he concludes that his life is indeed worth relating, in part because “over the years I have acquired the literary skill to recount that life well.”

Here he is wrong in both directions. His story is interesting enough to warrant this memoir. His personal life has taken complicated turns. And as the longtime editor of the quarterly magazine The American Scholar, and a notably literate conservative culture warrior, he’s been in the thick of things.

He does lack the skill to tell his own story, though, if by “skill” we mean not well-scrubbed Strunk and White sentences but close and penetrating observation. Epstein favors tasseled loafers and bow ties, and most of his sentences read as if they were written by a sentient tasseled loafer and edited by a sentient bow tie.

He grew up in Chicago, where his father manufactured costume jewelry. The young Epstein was popular and, in high school, lettered in tennis. His title refers to being lucky, and a big part of that luck, in his estimation, was to grow up back when kids could be kids, before “the therapeutic culture” took over.

This complaint sets the tone of the book. His own story is set next to a rolling series of cultural grievances. He’s against casual dress, the prohibition of the word “Negro,” grade inflation, the Beat Generation, most of what occurred during the 1960s, standards slipping everywhere, de-Westernizing college curriculums, D.E.I. programs, you name it. His politics aren’t the problem. We can argue about those. American culture needs more well-read conservatives. The problem is that in his search for teachable moments, his memoir acquires the cardboard tone of a middling opinion column.

His youth was not all tennis lessons and root beer floats. He and his friends regularly visited brothels because, he writes, sex was not as easy to come by in the 1950s. He was kicked out of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign for his role in the selling of a stolen accounting exam to other students.

He was lucky to find a place at the University of Chicago, a place of high seriousness. The school changed him. He began to reassess his values. He began to read writers like Irving Howe, Sidney Hook, Midge Decter and Norman Podhoretz, and felt his politics pull to the right.

After college, he was drafted into the Army and ended up in Little Rock, Ark., where he met his first wife. At the time, she was a waitress at a bar and restaurant called the Gar Hole. Here Epstein’s memoir briefly threatens to acquire genuine weight.

She had lost custody of her two sons after a divorce. Together they got them back, and she and Epstein had two sons of their own. After their divorce, Epstein took all four of the boys. This is grist for an entire memoir, but Epstein passes over it quickly. One never gets much of a sense of what his boys were like, or what it was like to raise them. He later tells us that he has all but lost touch with his stepsons and has not seen them for decades.

He worked for the magazine The New Leader and the Encyclopaedia Britannica before becoming the editor of The American Scholar in 1975. It was a position he would hold for 22 years. He also taught at Northwestern University for nearly three decades.

At The American Scholar he began to write a long personal essay in each issue, under the pseudonym Aristides. He wrote 92 of these, on topics such as smoking and envy and reading and height. Most ran to 6,500 words, or about 4,000 words longer than they should have been.

Many magazine editors like to write every so often, to keep a hand in. But there is something unseemly about an editor chewing up acres of space in his own publication on a regular basis. Editorially, it’s a droit du seigneur imposition.

A selection of these essays, as well as some new ones, can now be found in “Familiarity Breeds Content.” In his introduction to this book, Christopher Buckley overpraises Epstein, leaving the reader no choice but to start mentally pushing back.

Buckley calls Epstein “the most entertaining living essayist in the English language.” (Not while Michael Kinsley, Lorrie Moore, Calvin Trillin, Sloane Crosley and Geoff Dyer, among many others, walk the earth.) He repurposes Martin Amis’s comment about Saul Bellow: “One doesn’t read Saul Bellow. One can only reread him.” To this he adds, “Ditto Epstein.” (Epstein is no Saul Bellow.) Buckley says, “Joe Epstein is incapable of writing a boring sentence.”

Well. How about this one, from an essay about cats?

A cat, I realize, cannot be everyone’s cup of fur.

Or this one, from an essay about sports and other obsessions:

I have been told there are people who wig out on pasta.

Or this one, about … guess:

When I was a boy, it occurs to me now, I always had one or another kind of hat.

Juggling today appears to be undergoing a small renaissance.

If one is looking to save on fuel bills, politics is likely to heat up a room quicker than just about anything else.

In tennis I was most notable for flipping and catching my racket in various snappy routines.

The essays are, by and large, as tweedy and self-satisfied as these lines make them sound. There are no wild hairs in them, no sudden deepenings of tone. Nothing is at stake. We are stranded with him on the putt-putt course.

Epstein fills his essays with quotation after quotation, as ballast. I am a fan of well-deployed, free-range quotations. So many of Epstein’s are musty and reek of Bartlett’s. They are from figures like Lord Chesterfield and Lady Mary Montagu and Sir Herbert Grierson and Tocqueville and Walpole and Carlyle. You can feel the moths escaping from the display case in real time.

To be fair, I circled a few sentences in “Familiarity Breeds Content” happily. I’m with him on his distrust of “fun couples.” He writes, “A cowboy without a hat is suitable only for bartending.” I liked his observation, which he borrowed from someone else, that a career has five stages:

(1) Who is Joseph Epstein? (2) Get me Joseph Epstein. (3) We need someone like Joseph Epstein. (4) What we need is a young Joseph Epstein. (5) Who is Joseph Epstein?

It’s no fun to trip up a writer on what might have been a late-career victory lap. Epstein doesn’t need me to like his work. He’s published more than 30 books, and you can’t do that unless you’ve made a lot of readers happy.

NEVER SAY YOU’VE HAD A LUCKY LIFE : Especially If You’ve Had a Lucky Life | By Joseph Epstein | Free Press | 287 pp. | $29.99

FAMILIARITY BREEDS CONTENT : New and Selected Essays | By Joseph Epstein | Simon & Schuster | 441 pp. | Paperback, $20.99

Dwight Garner has been a book critic for The Times since 2008, and before that was an editor at the Book Review for a decade. More about Dwight Garner

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