How to Live

For people of all ages, how to get along 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? The Renaissance writer Michel Eyquem de Montaigne grappled with this question more than four hundred years ago by writing free-roaming explorations of his thoughts and experience, unlike anything written before. More than four centuries 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 empathetic biography explores the reasons why readers have found themselves so drawn to Montaigne throughout history.