I think it’s really wonderful to see a man from the 1500s quote and examine Ancient Greek and Roman passages, in the same way I did in the 2000s in college. This essay collection makes you feel like the world isn’t too big, but also so big. I think I would have preferred to have a hard copy, and take annotations. This translation is beautiful with some really well crafted prose, both a sign of competence in De Montaigne and the translator. I think this piece would have worked better for me if I had been studying it in a classroom instead of reading it for leisure. There were several uncomfortable and dated anecdotes that I found took away from my experience reading it (non consensual somnophilia, beheading, women as property, racism, etc). I understand these are real things that happened but it doesn’t make reading them very fun, and there are other essays in this collection that don’t touch topics like that, which were much more enjoyable. Still the writing was excellent and I think many will enjoy this.

Thank you to NetGalley and Steerforth & Pushkin | Pushkin Press Classics for providing me with the ARC.

I have been a fervent reader of Montaigne's Essays since my adolescence. I am therefore delighted to be able to read excerpts from his Essays again.

I found the idea of collecting essential texts excellent to introduce Montaigne and his humanist work.The selected excerpts are powerful and have been gathered and organized into themes that make sense to the reader.

The only thing I could criticize is the absence of a mini biography of Montaigne. I think some readers (in particular those who are not familiar with Montaigne, Humanism and his era) would have appreciated a mini biography of Montaigne, particularly in order to better understand the context of his work.

I highly recommend this book as a bedside book for all readers interested in philosophy and humanism and for amateurs of Montaigne.

I had a hard time feeling inspired by these essays. I think this is just not the type of content that speaks to me, and that’s okay. It does, however, feel like it could be really impactful for the right reader.