How to Live

This was a fabulous read. I tried to postpone reading it until I'd finished Montaigne's essays, and I'm very glad that I didn't. Bakewell provides a lot of backstory and history and context - things that a contemporary Montaigne reader would know, but we, 400 years later, don't have access to off the tops of our heads. Now I'm ready to jump in and start Montaigne over with a better understanding of the world he lived in.

So many important books, so little time. Why read this book instead of jumping straight into Montaigne? For one, because I didn't know that I needed to read Montaigne. Now I do, and I will.

Another reason to read this book: Context. Some people can dive head-first into a book without understanding its origin; the ethos of the time, the spirit of the author. Some people skip the Introduction. Not I. This may be a rather long Introduction, but it's both thorough and riveting. Kudos to Bakewell.

Montaigne is the first essayist, a philosopher, an ordinary person. Sarah Bakewell takes a careful look at Montaigne's life and writings in this book and shares her thoughts on the ways Montaigne teaches us to live, with one question and twenty answers, including:

Question everything.
Live moderately.
Be convivial.
Be ordinary and imperfect.

Brilliant, I think. In an ordinary way.

And now I shall attempt to read the essays themselves.