A review by yurii__
At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails by Sarah Bakewell

5.0

What a comprehensive and fascinating description of the existentialist philosophy. Sarah Bakewell managed to perfectly systematise the the key thinkers of the time, summarise their ideas, described context and of course people themselves. Even through the language is quite sophisticated, I must admit that I expected a bit more wit, especially when you write about such characters as Sartre, de Beauvoir or Heidegger. It might be due to the attempt to dissociate herself with the philosophers and be ‘objective’, but I doubt that since the author express her personal experience and thoughts fairly often. Yet, it seems like a personal preference for the tone of voice. Hence, I cannot give less than five stars to such an enlightening book about such a challenging topic.