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- Wed, 12:01: I've favourited an @YouTube video http://t.co/sFVetunh LAUREL AITKEN - REGGAE 69
- Wed, 12:10: New blog entry http://t.co/9NLITX8h
- Wed, 20:23: All i hear at the moment is the wonky vocals of my cousin
- Wed, 20:30: @spotonetwo ha ha lol
- Wed, 21:39: @DoverCastleInn Spot's in a deep funk again mate
- Wed, 21:44: Cousin keeps saying he is fed up, so go and have a drink with Phil then
- Wed, 21:55: Finished reading Bruce Chatwin's "The Songlines". Review to come.
- Wed, 22:19: Book 18 - Bruce Chatwin "The Songlines" http://t.co/2Mu6725v
- Wed, 22:21: Right folks, might just do a bit of reading before i nod off to sleep
May. 3rd, 2012
Sarah Bakewell “How To Live A Life Of Montaigne” (Vintage)
Finally, reached the last chapter today.
Bakewell, cleverly, has nonetheless managed to tap into the booming modern market for such “quick boosts” of wisdom (not all of them by any means as harmless as tips on eyebrow shaping), while actually writing a serious biography of a serious thinker from an age less like our own that we might solipsistically think. She’s not the first to take on such a task, of course. Superior literary lessons for life have become an established sub-genre of the self-help boom: How to Win Friends and Influence Readers of the Paris Review. Thus books such as Alain de Botton’s How Proust Can Change Your Life or John Armstrong’s Love, Life, Goethe have explored this territory in their different ways. Bakewell’s life of Montaigne combines some of the merits of de Botton’s knowing, entertaining intellectual squib and Armstrong’s thorough and absorbing biographical study. If her work enjoys a popular resonance greater than theirs—and I think it may—it’s most likely a tribute to its subject, Montaigne
It is hard to imagine a better introduction to Montaigne than Bakewell's book.
Finally, reached the last chapter today.
Bakewell, cleverly, has nonetheless managed to tap into the booming modern market for such “quick boosts” of wisdom (not all of them by any means as harmless as tips on eyebrow shaping), while actually writing a serious biography of a serious thinker from an age less like our own that we might solipsistically think. She’s not the first to take on such a task, of course. Superior literary lessons for life have become an established sub-genre of the self-help boom: How to Win Friends and Influence Readers of the Paris Review. Thus books such as Alain de Botton’s How Proust Can Change Your Life or John Armstrong’s Love, Life, Goethe have explored this territory in their different ways. Bakewell’s life of Montaigne combines some of the merits of de Botton’s knowing, entertaining intellectual squib and Armstrong’s thorough and absorbing biographical study. If her work enjoys a popular resonance greater than theirs—and I think it may—it’s most likely a tribute to its subject, Montaigne
It is hard to imagine a better introduction to Montaigne than Bakewell's book.
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