How to Live
Categories: Biographies & Memoirs
Sarah Bakewell's 2010 biography of Michel de Montaigne, the 16th-century French nobleman, public official and wine-grower, tells his life through the question he kept asking: how to live? Montaigne invented the essay, free-roaming attempts that took in his taste in food, his childhood memories and the religious civil wars around him. Bakewell offers twenty possible answers to his question, tracing his unusual upbringing, his friendship with the poet Étienne de La Boétie and the readers who have found themselves in him for centuries.
Recommended by 4 people
- Marc Andreessen
- Anthony Bourdain
- Ryan Holiday
- Shane Parrish: “In this clever biography, Sarah Bakewell brings Montaigne to life while addressing fundamental question of how to live. If you’re too intimidated by The Complete Essays, this is a good warm up”