Helen Epstein Journalist Profile

Articles

How a diverse group of Lexingtonians is helping seniors as part of this year's MLK Day of Service

Jan 7, 2025 | lexobserver.org | Helen Epstein

About Lexington Observer Local news brings communities together, drives participation in civic life and helps build the informed citizenry required for a thriving democracy. The Lexington Observer is a hyperlocal, digital-first, nonprofit news site covering issues that matter most to people in Lexington, including local government, education, economy, environment and culture.
Book Review: Anne Frank's Diary -- The Graphic Version

Oct 13, 2024 | artsfuse.org | Helen Epstein

By Helen EpsteinI’m impressed with the new adaptation and depressed that it’s considered necessary. Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation. Adapted by Ari Folman; Illustrations by David Polonsky, Pantheon 149 pp. When the Anne Frank Fonds in Basel, owners of the world rights to Anne Frank’s diary, contracted with writer Ari Folman and illustrator David Polonsky to adapt and animate the classic text in 2013, they were responding to a dramatic change in young people’s reading habits worldwide.
How do Lexington's Black residents feel about Kamala Harris's historic candidacy?

Sep 24, 2024 | lexobserver.org | Helen Epstein

About Lexington Observer Local news brings communities together, drives participation in civic life and helps build the informed citizenry required for a thriving democracy. The Lexington Observer is a hyperlocal, digital-first, nonprofit news site covering issues that matter most to people in Lexington, including local government, education, economy, environment and culture.
Book Review: Doris Kearns Goodwin and Gretchen Whitmer -- Disappointing Guides

Aug 28, 2024 | artsfuse.org | Helen Epstein

By Helen EpsteinThe rewards are slight in new politically minded books by a pair of shrewd and perceptive women. True Gretch: What I’ve Learned About Life, Leadership, and Everything in Between by Gretchen Whitmer. Simon & Schuster 2024, 156 pp. An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Simon & Schuster, 480 pp.
Elegy for a Mentor

May 30, 2024 | lilith.org | Helen Epstein

Lou Cowan: design by Liza Cowan The political protests that overwhelmed American campuses during the Sixties were mostly over by the time I arrived at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, but I needed more than just a week of orientation to get acclimatized. I had been a student at Hebrew University from 1967 until June of 1970. Jerusalem then was small, secular, and quiet.
Book Review: The "Three Lives" of Stefan Zweig - The Arts Fuse

May 1, 2024 | artsfuse.org | Helen Epstein |Pushkin Press

Stefan Zweig’s was a dramatic, action-packed, intense epic of a life, but Oliver Matuschek’s biography, “Three Lives,” simply plods along. Three Lives: A Biography of Stefan Zweig by Oliver Matuschek. Translated by Alan Blunden. Pushkin Press, 384 pages, $32. By Helen EpsteinThree Lives was Stefan Zweig’s own working title for his memoir The World of Yesterday, his last complete work.
Works Not Faith | Helen Epstein

Nov 6, 2023 | thebaffler.com | Helen Epstein |Hari Krishna Kaul

In the early 1990s, I worked as a biochemist on an HIV vaccine research project in Uganda. My lab was in a ramshackle hospital in Kampala, then a dusty city of about a million people surrounded by forested hills a few miles north of Lake Victoria. Roughly one in seven Ugandan adults was HIV-positive, and there was still no treatment for AIDS. Everyone I met was affected by it.
Book Review: The Leonard Bernstein Correspondence -- A Tour of Twentieth Century Cultural History

Oct 3, 2023 | artsfuse.org | Helen Epstein |Blake Maddux

By Helen EpsteinSo is the book worth reading? Depends how interested you are in twentieth century cultural history, in music and creative genius, in marriage and sexuality, in what people allow themselves to be conscious of and what they block out. The Leonard Bernstein Letters, edited by by Nigel Simeone. Yale University Press, 606 pages, $38.
Classic Carrot Ring

Aug 29, 2023 | omahajewishpress.com | Helen Epstein

Ed. note: After asking the Jewish Press Board of Directors to submit recipes, Helen Epstein sent us this recipe. We'll replace the photo with a pic of the actual cake as soon as possible!Ingredients:1 1/4 cups flour 1 tsp baking soda1 tsp baking powderpinch of saltcinnamon (optional)nutmeg (optional) 1 cup vegetable shortening1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar1 egg1 1/2 cups grated carrots2 tbsps lemon juiceSpray 8-cup ring mold with non-stick vegetable spray. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
Theater Review: "Rock and Roll Man" -- Ambitious Musical Fun

Jun 21, 2023 | artsfuse.org | Helen Epstein

Theater Review: “Rock and Roll Man” — Ambitious Musical Fun By Helen EpsteinIf you enjoy singing and dancing in your theater seat to the sound of good music while learning a bit about American cultural history and its personalities, you will enjoy this show. Rock and Roll Man: The Alan Freed Story Book by Gary Kupper, Larry Marshak, and Rose Caiola. Original music and lyrics by Gary Kupper, Directed by Randal Myler.