How to Live
Or a Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer
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Narrated by:
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Davina Porter
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By:
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Sarah Bakewell
About this listen
National Book Critics Circle Award, Biography, 2011
This question obsessed Renaissance writers, none more than Michel Eyquem de Montaigne, perhaps the first recognizably modern individual. A nobleman, public official, and winegrower, he wrote free-roaming explorations of his thought and experience, unlike anything written before. He called them essays, meaning “attempts” or “tries.” He put whatever was in his head into them: 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 best seller and, over four hundred years later, Montaigne’s honesty and charm still draw readers to him. They come in search of companionship, wisdom, and entertainment - and in search of themselves.This book, a spirited and singular biography, relates the story of Montaigne’s life by way of the questions he posed and the answers he explored. It traces his bizarre upbringing, his youthful career and sexual adventures, his travels, and his friendships with the scholar and poet Étienne de La Boétie and with his adopted “daughter,” Marie de Gournay. And 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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Nearly six hundred years ago, a short, genial, cannily alert man in his late 30s took a very old manuscript off a library shelf, saw with excitement what he had discovered, and ordered that it be copied. That book was the last surviving manuscript of an ancient Roman philosophical epic by Lucretius—a beautiful poem containing the most dangerous ideas: that the universe functioned without the aid of gods, that religious fear was damaging to human life, and that matter was made up of very small particles.
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Very compelling history, a less compelling thesis
- By A reader on 05-01-12
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I Am Dynamite!
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- Narrated by: Nicholas Guy Smith
- Length: 17 hrs and 19 mins
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Nietzsche wrote that all philosophy is autobiographical, and in this vividly compelling, myth-shattering biography, Sue Prideaux brings listeners into the world of this brilliant, eccentric, and deeply troubled man, illuminating the events and people that shaped his life and work. I Am Dynamite! is the essential biography for anyone seeking to understand history's most misunderstood philosopher.
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Fascinating; tragic
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Kierkegaard
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- By: Stephen Backhouse
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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An accessible, expert introduction to one of the greatest minds of 19th century. Whether you're completely new to him, or if you're already familiar with his work, Kierkegaard: A Single Life presents a fresh understanding of his life and thought. Kierkegaard was a brilliant and enigmatic loner whose ideas permeated culture, shaped modern Christianity, and influenced people as diverse as Franz Kafka and Martin Luther King Jr. Though few people today have read his work, that lack of familiarity with the real Kierkegaard is changing with this biography by scholar Stephen Backhouse.
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Great!
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Jonathan Swift: His Life and His World
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- Narrated by: David Stifel
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- Unabridged
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Jonathan Swift is best remembered today as the author of Gulliver’s Travels, the satiric fantasy that quickly became a classic and has remained in print for nearly three centuries. Yet Swift also wrote many other influential works, was a major political and religious figure in his time, and became a national hero, beloved for his fierce protest against English exploitation of his native Ireland. What is really known today about the enigmatic man behind these accomplishments? Can the facts of his life be separated from the fictions?
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JOHNATHAN SWIFT AND POWER OF THE PEN
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Romantic Outlaws
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Charlotte Gordon's new work is a fresh look at the lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley, who together comprise one of the most illustrious and inspiring mother-daughter pairs in history.
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Tons of info, poor format choice.
- By Gotta Tellya on 02-06-17
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Emerson
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Ralph Waldo Emerson is one of the most important figures in the history of American thought, religion, and literature. The vitality of his writings and the unsettling power of his example continue to influence us more than a hundred years after his death. Now Robert D. Richardson Jr. brings to life an Emerson very different from the old stereotype of the passionless Sage of Concord.
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Finally!
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Angels and Ages
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Written 200 years after Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln shared a birthday on February 12, 1809, this insightful account sheds new light on two men who changed the way we think about the meaning of life and death. Award-winning journalist Adam Gopnik's unique perspective, combined with previously unexplored stories and figures, reveals two men planted firmly at the roots of modern views and liberal values.
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Connecting Darwin and Lincoln
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Elegant, profound, and riveting, Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know illuminates not only the complex relationships between three of the greatest writers in the English language and their fathers, but also illustrates the surprising ways these men surface in their work. Through these stories of fathers and sons, Tóibín recounts the resistance to English cultural domination, the birth of modern Irish cultural identity, and the extraordinary contributions of these complex and masterful authors.
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Eminently re-readable
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Distinguished author Phillip Lopate, editor of the celebrated anthology The Art of the Personal Essay, is universally acclaimed as “one of our best personal essayists” ( Dallas Morning News). Here, combining more than 40 years of lessons from his storied career as a writer and professor, he brings us this highly anticipated nuts-and-bolts guide to writing literary nonfiction. A phenomenal master class shaped by Lopate’s informative, accessible tone, and immense gift for storytelling.
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Not a guide on writing personal essays
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Heroes
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In this enlightening and entertaining work, Johnson presents heroism through examples in history. From Alexander to Joan of Arc and George Washington to Marilyn Monroe, here are men and women from every age and corner of the world who have inspired and transformed their cultures and the world itself.
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Interesting, but deeply flawed
- By Kennet on 12-27-07
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Cultural Amnesia
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From Anna Akhmatova to Stefan Zweig, via Charles de Gaulle, Hitler, Thomas Mann and Charlie Chaplin, this varied and unfailingly absorbing book is both story and history, both public memoir and personal record - and provides an essential field-guide to the vast movements of taste, intellect, politics and delusion that helped to prepare the times we live in now.
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Very enjoyable and well narrated
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A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare
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1599 was an epochal year for Shakespeare and England. During that year, Shakespeare wrote four of his most famous plays: Henry the Fifth, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, and, most remarkably, Hamlet; Elizabethans sent off an army to crush an Irish rebellion, weathered an Armada threat from Spain, gambled on a fledgling East India Company, and waited to see who would succeed their aging and childless queen.
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Note!--Abridged version
- By Scott on 01-05-16
By: James Shapiro
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What listeners say about How to Live
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Amazon Customer
- 03-31-18
A wonderful tale of his life and writings.
This book does a lovely job of opening up Montaigne and delving into the life and character that gave birth to the Essays and furthermore lived and breathed and acted in the world in an effort to live well. I now want to go and read the Essays for myself.
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- Kenneth Meier
- 06-04-16
Probably one of the best history reads
Great write... great read... great voice... perfect for a mind often and mysteriously overlooked. We all owe our current focus on the individual human experience to Montaigne
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- Beth Flynn
- 01-06-19
The narrator
The overacting by the narrator was really distracting to me. I found her over the top.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Darwin8u
- 05-21-12
Interesting and in parts Inspired.
An interesting and in parts inspired take on Montaigne's essays, life, and times. I liked the Montaigne-inspired structure and the book's many insights, but alas, it still just wasn't Montaigne. I think this would be a good introduction to someone before reading Essays and for me was a good re-visit after I read (it gave me a lot of information about the region and people Montaigne dealt with consistently). But please people, don't read/listen to this to better understand Montaigne, there is a whole book he wrote that helps with that. So, use this book for pre/post Montaigne, but avoid using it as a replacement. Narration was appropriate for book.
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36 people found this helpful
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- Robert Osborne
- 12-10-16
Schrodinger or Montaige's cat? You choose…
A great aide to placing Montaigne in context both historical, intellectual and contemporaneously from the ancient to the modern…
Myself, I choose Montaigne'a cat...
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8 people found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 09-29-11
how to live ? / how he lived !
all the praise for the book and narration are well deserved
it is much more than a simple review or sample of " the essays "
the book's unique benefit comes from a sly and deeper approach
sarah bakewell tries to answer the question of how to live
to do this she shows us just how michel de montaigne lived
how could 1500's france have given rise to such a modern soul ?
a world of endless religious & political turmoil / concern about a plague
the burden of inherited comfort and position and expectations
a loveless marriage / the death of one's only true male friend
life was clearly too much for montaigne and he retreated
he feared losing his own soul and the essays were his attempt to find it
hello ! / any of this sound familiar to a modern reader ?
how can we find serenity in a world beyond our control ?
can courage and wisdom be found to know where we can make a difference ?
sarah bakewell reaches back 500 years for a very good answer
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15 people found this helpful
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- Carolyn Saund
- 05-23-17
A meandering masterpiece
Part biography, part analysis, this beautiful address by Bakewell is a thoughtful rethinking and retelling of Montaigne's life that is thorough, insightful, and delightful throughout. I can't decide if this is an easy beach read or a bedtime thinker, but I highly, highly recommend this book
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- Lili Arnold
- 05-11-19
How to live? Read Sarah Bakewells Life of Montaigne, then Montaigne himself.
This marvelous reading, full of thoughtful inflection and enthusiasm, serves as a great introduction to the great 16th century creator of the essay form. Having come to this reading after many years of rereading Montaigne, the fullness of awareness provided by Bakewell’s biography
has deepened my appreciation of the man and his magnum opus.
It would be a wiser and better world were all of humanity to read both How To Live, and its subject’s essays.
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- Lucie Arbuthnot
- 09-17-11
A wonderful book about how to live one's life
The enthusiastic critical reception of this book is entirely justified, and the audio version is fine. When you're finished, listen to Alain de Botton's highly entertaining book on several of the philosophers who inspired Montaigne, "The Consolations of Philosophy."
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7 people found this helpful
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- Avi Stachenfeld
- 01-11-21
Editor Needed
Although advertised as a book about Montaigne's thoughts as they appear in his Essays, prepare yourself for the three authorial voices in this book two of whom that leave little room for the author of the Essays. The first voice is that of Montaigne, and there is precious little heard from him. The second is the historian, in the form of Sarah Bakewell, and while there is some good information, it is unfortunately mixed in with an overabundance of assumptions and unsupported conclusions. And the third is the social commentator Sarah Bakewell, who offers more unsolicited opinions than even Monsieur Montaigne himself. Nevertheless, and perhaps because of the excess of Ms Bakewell, I have downloaded the essays themselves and look forward to many hours of excellent listening.
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2 people found this helpful