Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography, from the creator of Humanly Possible
How to get together with people, how to take care of violence, how to adjust to losing someone you love—such questions arise in most of the people’s lives. They’re all versions of a larger question: How do you live? This question obsessed Renaissance writers, none more than Michel Eyquem de Montaigne, thought to be by many to be the first in reality modern individual. He wrote free-roaming explorations of his thoughts and experience, unlike anything written before. More than four hundred years later, Montaigne’s honesty and charm still draw people to him. Readers come to him on the lookout for companionship, wisdom, and entertainment —and on the lookout for themselves. Just as they’ll to this spirited and singular biography.
