Sarah Bakewell was a curator of early printed books at the Wellcome Library before becoming a full-time writer, publishing her highly acclaimed biographies The Smart and The English Dane. She lives in London, where she teaches creative writing at City University and catalogs rare book collections for the National Trust.
“This charming biography shuffles incidents from Montaigne’s life
and essays into twenty thematic chapters…Bakewell clearly relishes
the anthropological anecdotes that enliven Montaigne’s work, but
she handles equally well both his philosophical influences and the
readers and interpreters who have guided the reception of the
essays.” —The New Yorker
“Serious, engaging, and so infectiously in love with its subject
that I found myself racing to finish so I could start rereading the
Essays themselves…It is hard to imagine a better introduction—or
reintroduction—to Montaigne than Bakewell’s book.” —Lorin Stein,
Harper’s Magazine
“Ms. Bakewell’s new book, How to Live, is a biography, but in the
form of a delightful conversation across the centuries.” —The New
York Times
“So artful is Bakewell’s account of [Montaigne] that even skeptical
readers may well come to share her admiration.” —The New York Times
Book Review
“Extraordinary…a miracle of complex, revelatory organization, for
as Bakewell moves along she provides a brilliant demonstration of
the alchemy of historical viewpoint.” —Boston Globe
“Well, How to Live is a superb book, original, engaging, thorough,
ambitious, and wise.” —Nick Hornby, in the November/December 2010
issue of The Believer
“In How to Live, an affectionate introduction to the author,
Bakewell argues that, far from being a dusty old philosopher,
Montaigne has never been more relevant—a 16th-century blogger, as
she would have it—and so must be read, quite simply, ‘in order to
live’…Bakewell is a wry and intelligent guide.” —The Daily
Beast
“Witty, unorthodox…How to Live is a history of ideas told entirely
on the ground, never divorced from the people thinking them. It
hews close to Montaigne’s own preoccupations, especially his
playful uncertainty – Bakewell is a stickler for what we can’t
know. …How to Live is a delight…” —The Plain Dealer
“This book will have new readers excited to be acquainted to
Montaigne’s life and ideas, and may even stir their curiosity to
read more about the ancient Greek philosophers who influenced his
writing. How to Live is a great companion to Montaigne’s
essays, and even a great stand-alone.” —San Francisco Book
Review
“A bright, genial, and generous introduction to the master’s
methods.” —Kirkus Reviews
“[Bakewell reveals] one of literature's enduring figures as an
idiosyncratic, humane, and surprisingly modern force.” —Publisher’s
Weekly (starred)
“As described by Sarah Bakewell in her suavely enlightening How to
Live, or A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at
an Answer Montaigne is, with Walt Whitman, among the most congenial
of literary giants, inclined to shrug over the inevitability of
human failings and the last man to accuse anyone of
self-absorption. His great subject, after all, was himself.” —Laura
Miller, Salon.com
“Lively and fascinating . . . How To Live takes its place as the
most enjoyable introduction to Montaigne in the English language.”
—The Times Literary Supplement
“Splendidly conceived and exquisitely written . . . enormously
absorbing.” —Sunday Times
“How to Live will delight and illuminate.” —The Independent
“It is ultimately [Montaigne’s] life-loving vivacity that Bakewell
succeeds in communicating to her readers.” —The Observer
“This subtle and surprising book manages the trick of conversing in
a frank and friendly manner with its centuries-old literary giant,
as with a contemporary, while helpfully placing Montaigne in a
historical context. The affection of the author for her
subject is palpable and infectious.” —Phillip Lopate, author of The
Art of the Personal Essay
“An intellectually lively treatment of a Renaissance giant and his
world.” —Saturday Telegraph
“Like recent books on Proust, Joyce, and Austen, How to Live
skillfully plucks a life-guide from the incessant flux of
Montaigne’s prose . . . A superb, spirited introduction to the
master.” —The Guardian
“[How to Live] is written in the form of a delightful conversation
across the ages with one of the most appealing, likeable writers
who ever lived.” —Independent Mail
"More than just a straightforward biography of Michel de Montaigne,
Sarah Bakewell cleverly breaks away from chronology to explore the
fundamental questions of living through the philosophy, beliefs,
essays and experiences of the French master we often reference as
the “father” of “essay.”—Cerise Press
"[A] must-read in its entirety." —Brainpickings
"Bakewell’s writing style is equal parts fluid and
fascinating." —The Flâneur’s Turtle
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