How to Live A Life of Montaigne is an exquisite, award-winning book by Sarah Bakewell. I haven’t read such a good biography for a long time, and I’m sure anyone will enjoy this.
How to Live A Life of Montaigne gives twenty answers to the question of how to live. And it also portrays the life of Montaigne with these answers. As you get detailed information about how and when Montaigne wrote Essays, you read what has happened to the book. While reading, you find yourself looking back at your own life.
This exciting life and perspective of the coincidental philosopher both affects and makes people think. If you haven’t read Montaigne’s Essays, I would say read it after reading this book. If you have read it and it has been a long time, you will want to reread it. To sum up, if you’re looking for a good biography, you may like this one. Enjoy!
How to Live A Life of Montaigne
This question obsessed Renaissance nobleman Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533-92), who wrote free-roaming explorations of his thought and experience, unlike anything written before. Into these essays he put whatever was in his head: his tastes in wine and food, his childhood memories, the way his dog’s ears twitched when it was dreaming, events in the appalling civil wars raging around him. The Essays was an instant bestseller, and over four hundred years later, readers still come to him in search of companionship, wisdom and entertainment – and in search of themselves.
This first full biography of Montaigne in English for nearly fifty years relates the story of his life by way of the questions he posed and the answers he explored.
Sarah Bakewell
Sarah Bakewell is a British author and professor. She currently lives in London. She received the Windham–Campbell Literature Prize in Non-Fiction.
Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
