Started this years ago in paperback; listened to it this time on audio. Much better, as it's a bit dense, and I could tune out during the less-gripping passages. Fascinating discussion of Montaigne, his legacy, his world, etc. Will want to spend more time with his Essays.

A few books have been that effortlessly enjoyable

Please read my review on my blog.

https://polymathtobe.blogspot.com/2021/06/book-review-how-to-live-or-life-of.html

A long, comforting read--perfect for another COVID lockdown winter. I feel like I've had a deep conversation all night long with a dear friend.

I should know more about Montaigne and find the time to read him. Interesting for exploring the book, the man and ideas on how to live

Didn't manage to finish this, but I enjoyed the first few chapters. It got a bit too academic, with too little philosophy, for me towards the later chapters

Adoro Montaigne, mas soube-me a pouco o livro de Sarah Bakewell, "How to Live, or a life of Montaigne in one question and twenty attempts at an answer" (2010) de quem tinha adorado "At the Existentialist Cafe: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails" (2016), talvez porque sabia muito menos sobre Sartre, Beauvoir e Heidegger. Já me tinha acontecido com o livro de Stefan Zweig, "Montaigne" (1942), sobre o qual disse "não se pode chamar a um texto que aglutina um conjunto solto de ideias sobre alguém uma biografia". E agora com Bakewell voltei a sentir um pouco disto mesmo. Contudo, refletindo, talvez o problema não esteja nos biógrafos, nem tão pouco no biografado, mas na obra principal deste. O brilho dos "Ensaios" (1580) está no modo como nos dá acesso ao modo de ver do próprio Montaigne. Lendo os Ensaios conseguimos em vários momentos calçar as suas botas e viajar pelo seu mundo. Uma viagem que segue pelo meio dos seus pensamentos, sem inícios nem fins, já que é de um modo associativo que cada ensaio se vai desenvolvendo e nos oferecendo acessos ao mundo interior e passado. Tentar transformar este mundo rizomaticamente livre num encadeado fixo de momentos temporais parece estar destinado a não funcionar.

ler com links e imagens no blog:
https://virtual-illusion.blogspot.com/2022/07/a-vida-de-montaigne-segundo-bakewell.html

"Twenty first century people, in the developed world, are already individualistic to excess, as well as entwined with one another to a degree beyond the wildest dreams of a sixteenth century winegrower. His sense of the 'I' in all things may seem a case of preaching to the converted, or even feeding drugs to the addicted. But Montaigne offers more than an incitement to self indulgence. The twenty first century has everything to gain from a Montaignean sense of life, and in its most troubled moments so far, it has been sorely in need of a Montaignean politics. It could use his sense of moderation, his love of sociability and courtesy, his suspension of judgment, and his subtle understanding of the psychological mechanisms involved in confrontation and conflict. It needs his conviction that no vision of heaven, no imagined Apocalypse, and no perfectionist fantasy can ever outweigh the tiniest selves in the real world. It is unthinkable to Montaigne that one could ever 'gratify heaven and nature by committing massacre and homicide, a belief universally embraced in all religions.' To believe that life could demand any such thing is to forget what day-to-day existence actually is. It entails forgetting that, when you look at a puppy held over a bucket of water, or even at a cat in the mood for play, you are looking at a creature who looks back at you. No abstract principles are involved; there are only two individuals, face to face, hoping for the best from one another."

The perfect book to spur you on to read Montaigne yourself.