Essays of Michel De Montaigne — Volume 01

Montaigne invented the essay as a way to read his own mind, and in doing so, gave us a method for reading ours. In these pages, a 16th-century nobleman sits in his library, smoking pipes and questioning everything from the taste of wine to the logic of war, from the nature of friendship to the strange behavior of cannibals he's heard about from sailors. He writes not to prove points but to discover what he actually thinks, and the result is a book that feels less like philosophy than a conversation with the most interesting person you'll ever meet. Volume One begins with his thoughts on sorrow and idleness, moves through friendship and books, and gradually builds into an intimate portrait of a mind perpetually curious about its own workings. Five centuries later, Montaigne remains startlingly contemporary: he distrusts ideology, distrusts certainty even more, and believes the only true wisdom is knowing how much we don't know. If you've ever felt the vertigo of self-examination, or found yourself wondering what you actually believe about love, death, or the good life, Montaigne has been waiting for you.