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Sarah Bakewell
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How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at An Answer Hardcover – International Edition, February 16, 2010

by Sarah Bakewell (Author)
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 1,261 ratings
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Brilliant, original, funny and moving — a vivid portrait of Montaigne, showing how his ideas gave birth to our modern sense of our inner selves, from Shakespeare's plays to the dilemmas we face today.

How to get on well with people, how to deal with violence, how to adjust to losing someone you love — such questions arise in most people's lives. They are all versions of a bigger question: how do you live? How do you do the good or honourable thing, while flourishing and feeling happy?

This question obsessed Renaissance writers, none more than Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533-92), perhaps the first truly modern individual. A nobleman, public official and wine-grower, he wrote free-roaming explorations of his thought and experience, unlike anything written before. He called them 'essays', meaning 'attempts' or 'tries'. Into them he put whatever was in his head: his tastes in wine and food, his childhood memories, the way his dog's ears twitched when it was dreaming, as well as the appalling events of the religious civil wars raging around him. The Essays was an instant bestseller, and over four hundred years later, Montaigne's honesty and charm still draw people to him. Readers come to him in search of companionship, wisdom and entertainment — and in search of themselves.

This book, a spirited and singular biography (and the first full life of Montaigne in English for nearly fifty years), relates the story of his life by way of the questions he posed and the answers he explored. It traces his bizarre upbringing (made to speak only Latin), youthful career and sexual adventures, his travels, and his friendships with the scholar and poet Etienne de La Boétie and with his adopted 'daughter', Marie de Gournay. And as we read, we also meet his readers — who for centuries have found in Montaigne an inexhaustible source of answers to the haunting question, 'how to live?'
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  1. Print length
    387 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Chatto & Windus
  4. Publication date
    February 16, 2010
  5. Dimensions
    6.44 x 1.31 x 8.87 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    9780701178925
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0701178925
  8. See all details
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About the Author

SARAH BAKEWELL had a wandering childhood in Europe, Australia and England. After studying at the University of Essex, she 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 catalogues rare book collections for the National Trust.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0701178922
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Chatto & Windus; First Edition (February 16, 2010)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 387 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780701178925
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0701178925
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.44 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.44 x 1.31 x 8.87 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 1,261 ratings

About the author

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Sarah Bakewell

Sarah Bakewell

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Sarah Bakewell was born in Bournemouth on the English south coast, but spent most of her childhood in Sydney, Australia, after several years travelling the hippie trail through Asia with her parents. Returning to Britain, she studied philosophy at the University of Essex and worked as a curator of early printed books at London’s Wellcome Library for ten years before devoting herself to full-time writing in 2002. She now lives mostly in London, and teaches Creative Writing at Kellogg College, Oxford.

Her four books are all biographical, and the most recent two, 'How to Live: a life of Montaigne' and 'At the Existentialist Cafe', also explore philosophical ideas. 'How to Live' won the Duff Cooper Prize and the U.S. National Book Critics' Circle Award for Biography, and 'At the Existentialist Cafe' was chosen in 2016 as one of the New York Times' Ten Best Books of the Year.

Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
1,261 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Richard B. Schwartz
5.0 out of 5 stars A Fine Biography of a Very Important Writer
Reviewed in the United States on February 8, 2017
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Sarah Bakewell’s biography of Montaigne won the National Book Critics Circle Award for biography in 2010. It is a fine book, one that will engage the attention of all readers interested in the subject. That subject, of course, is very wide-ranging. Inspired by the philosophers of antiquity, Montaigne is one of the principal French writers of the Renaissance. To a degree he created the ‘essay’ form and his work has been pivotal for later thinkers. John Florio’s English translation was taught—in my day—as a work of literature itself and it helped to popularize a writer ‘adopted’ by the English as one of their own, at least in interests, spirit and unique personality. Montaigne was claimed by the romantics; he influenced Nietzsche, heartened the postmodernists and remains a writer of global importance and influence.

SB’s biography answers the question, ‘how to live?’ in twenty chapters, each of them keyed to a theme in Montaigne’s work. Hence, chapter 9: “Q. How to live? A. Be convivial: live with others.” The themes, however, do not trump the biography. This is not an endless examination of thematic content with an occasional look at the events in Montaigne’s life. It is a systematic biography held together by thin thematic divisions.

It is also a very learned biography, expanding at length, e.g., on the civil wars of the period, the driving ideologies, weaponry and specific details, both personal and political. It studies, e.g., the manner in which the texts of the Essays have come down to us, (what we would call) the copy texts, the emendations, the condensations, and so on. There is comparatively little on the content of the Essays themselves, ‘comparatively’ being the operative word. We learn a great deal about Montaigne’s classical influences, the nature of his pyrhonnism, the dimensions of his political associations, his personal relationships, his estate, its winemaking, and so on, but the only essay that is discussed at some length is (as one would expect) the longest of the essays, the Apology for Raymond Sebond.

It is sometimes said that the first requirement for a great biography is the author’s love for her subject (balanced, always, by a willingness to speak the truth, wherever its elements might fall). SB clearly admires Montaigne and wishes that today’s thinkers, writers and politicians (Montaigne served in all three capacities) would read him, be inspired by him and take lessons from him.

The writing is crisp and clear, direct and candid. While it is undergirded by a great deal of scholarship that scholarship does not drag the book down and bore the reader with tedious details. It contains a bibliography, index and series of endnotes, sufficient to guide the reader to other texts and explore/verify issues that have come under question.

The book is very much like its subject—a pleasant, human and humane read that takes on difficult subjects with a light touch and details experiences that will find echoes in the reader’s own heart.

Highly recommended.
78 people found this helpful
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Anuja Sharma
5.0 out of 5 stars Delightful read
Reviewed in the United States on April 23, 2024
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I am so glad to have come across this old book full of wisdom and wit. For anyone interested in learning about Montaigne’s life and the unique experiments of parenting that he was the object of, I strongly. recommend this.
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DB reviewer
4.0 out of 5 stars Good Introduction to Montaigne
Reviewed in the United States on February 18, 2024
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Bakewell's monograph about Montaigne offers a unique vision of the stateman's influence since the 16th Century. Montaigne's essays offer a wealth of information, and Bakewell breaks down his work about "How to Live". I would have pushed the title a little further, though: "How to Live Well".

We get to view ideas about paying attention, not worrying about death, surviving love and loss, waking from the sleep of habit, and reflect on everything while regretting nothing.

Well-written and engaging.
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An Alexandria music lover
5.0 out of 5 stars How to ENJOY Your Intellectual Life: Read this book
Reviewed in the United States on November 13, 2016
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Sarah Bakewell is a genius. In this book she gives us a moving biography of Montaigne, a history of the genesis and contents of his marvelous essays, an introduction to the history of editing his great masterpiece, and a lively and fascinating narrative of informed and popular responses to his book in successive eras. Montaigne very much feels like real presence in this book, one with a distinctive personality that is vividly represented by the author. One feels that Bakewell, along with hundreds or thousands of earlier readers have developed a personal relationship with the great writer, and Bakewell helps explain why this in the case even though an overwhelming share of readers of his essays of course have had no contact with him, except through his essays. Bakewell also does a wonderful and interesting job of explaining the very different critical reception Montaigne's essays received among his contemporaries and in succeeding generations of readers, both in France and elsewhere.

The ingenuity of the biography helps explain why critical reception of Bakewell's own book was so positive. But the plain fact is that Bakewell is also a stylish writer, capable of holding our fascinated (and occasionally amused) attention, even when she is discussing the minutiae of successive editions or of obscure editorial quarrels. The book was warmly recommended to me by a friend who said flatly it was the best book he'd read in a year or, indeed, in any recent year. You'll probably find this kind of enthusiasm in many of the Amazon reviews. If you're interested in philosophy or in a charismatic writer and thinker in a long bygone, tumultuous era, and if you care about artful construction and stylish writing, this might be the book for you. It certainly was for me.

P.S., I simultaneously read the Kindle version of the book and listened to the Audible version beautifully read by Davina Porter.
42 people found this helpful
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Rustyball
5.0 out of 5 stars Remarkable work
Reviewed in the United States on April 16, 2024
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If this book dies not make you want to read Montaigne, nothing will. The historical information provided is insightful and scholarly and places Montaigne in his temporal context as well the reader's, which I believe would make The Great Essayist most pleased.
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Frances
5.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating look into Montaigne's life
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 9, 2024
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This book is so well-researched and entertainingly written that I feel that in reading it, I had a tour of Montaigne's home. Highly recommended, will read this one more than once.
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Lisa H
5.0 out of 5 stars What a delight!
Reviewed in Canada on April 24, 2021
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I am in my heaven and swooning! Getting reacquainted with Montaigne 40+ years after first reading his Essays. Sarah Bakewell has done a splendid job exploring and explaining the man, his work, and the context of his existence and legacy. Highly recommend! Profound, yet an easy and quick read. I will re-read this treasure trove of a book many times, no doubt.
2 people found this helpful
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R. O. Iranzo
5.0 out of 5 stars Indispensable para conocer a Montaigne
Reviewed in Spain on July 30, 2023
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Me ha gustado mucho. La atora conoce muy bien a Montaigne y lo ha leído con profundidad: lo explica muy bien y lo hace más asequible al organizarlo por temas. Aunque mi primera lengua no es el inglés lo he encontrado asequible a mi nivel, gracias al kindle y la posibilidad de consultar el diccionario o traducir.
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Karim Ghazi Wakili
5.0 out of 5 stars A superb introduction into the life and mind of Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
Reviewed in Germany on February 6, 2022
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Masterfully written with a huge amount of information about Montaigne and his time.
I do not understand the critics I read below.
You can only understand a philosopher in the context of his time and life experience. The idea of a pasteurized purified and consequently frigid philosophy is nothing but a delusion.
And as a physicist i doknow that the equipment you use to investigate a phenomenon influences the result. In other words nobody can write a biography without bias, Of course, Sarah Bakewell is more than entitled to put her own colour,taste and preferences to her perception of Montaigne. She is not amachine translater !!!!
As of the references some other critics mentioned, ther are 35 pages of notes andsources in the book.
It wouldbe nice if more peoplewould write about Montaigne in such an interesting way,so that the audience couldmakeitsown mind which one to accept best.
I formy turn bought "Les Essaias" in modern french version, in German (my mother-tongue) and in Persian (my father-tongue) تتبعات which I am going to read simultaneously,
Thank you Sarah Bakewell for having shown me the way.
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Milan Durovic
5.0 out of 5 stars well written, got me interested in Montaigne
Reviewed in Australia on July 29, 2022
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The book is providing a lot of historical context and details about Montaigne's personal life, when addressing particular answers to the central question. This is not an abridged, short version of the original, but the original contribution of the author, about the life of a very interesting and influential individual. Highly recommended.
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