A review by heyhawk
How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at An Answer by Sarah Bakewell

4.0

This is an excellent combination of biography of Montaigne, an examination of the ideas in the essays, and a history of how those ideas were received and changed in the years since his death. I first read this back in 2013 to provide context to my first reading of Montaigne's essays. Returning to it as context for my second reading, it stands as a strong work in its own right. If you want to get a sense of the essays and their ideas without plowing through all 1000 pages, you could do far worse.

I also loved Bakewell's similar treatment of the existenialists in At The Existentialist Cafe, which I've also read twice. I also just found out she wrote a crime novel, which I'll have to get to soon.