Tag: sarah bakewell

So Far, So Good … Read On

Here at Chez H we have embarked on a new set of reading adventures, having completed Sarah Bakewell’s hard act to follow of At The Existentialist Cafe.

how-to-live_montaigneOn my own, I am reading Bakewell’s earlier (2010) How To Live, a piece of non-fiction on 16th century essayist Michel de Montaigne.   And loving it.

But we have also been searching for a good read-aloud book (following our success in that mode with Joseph Mitchell’s Up In The Old Hotel).  Now we think we have found it in Jane Gardam’s Old Filth, fiction about a postwar retired English barrister and judge who was once a British Empire civil servant in Hong Kong.  

old-filth_coverA melancholy sort of comedy, I’d say, Old Filth might be worth a movie or series of BBC or Masterpiece Theatre ilk.   This thing is the first in a trilogy, which we will happily move on to if it continues at this rate.  You can hear an audio excerpt on this page, btw.

Existential Developments

A few days ago, I mentioned reading “At The Existentialist Cafe“.  Finished it and now Kim is devouring this wonderful book.  Two items of note:

1. Author Sarah Bakewell frequently refers to books and films with relevant influences and connections.  One she mentioned was the 1949 film “Rendezvous in July” (“Rendez-vous de juillet”) in which French youth, driven by American culture and trends, adopt lumberjack-inspired fashion (a forerunner of today’s metrosexuals?).  Here is a clip from that film:

2.  Herman followed up with his previous mention of having seen Sartre’s and Beauvoir’s gravesites in Paris (about ten years ago?) by sending along photos he made of a postcard that appeared in the grass alongside, apparently from an admirer who had jotted down some sentiments upon a visit to Montparnasse Cemetery.

I am encouraging Herman to send his photos to Bakewell, so we shall see what happens.

Discoveries Upon Existential Meanderings

at-the-existentialist-cafe-uk-coverMy favorite current read — likely the best book I’ve read for a couple of years — is Sarah Bakewell’s “At The Existentialist Cafe“.  However, for me, the thing has quite tiny print, even as a hardback, that rather quickly exhausts my aging eyesight.  So I have considered buying a Kindle version (resizable text), but upon visiting Bakewell’s website, I found that the BBC has published audio readings of the thing.  Alas, the BBC readings seem to be time-limited, and have now expired (however, I made a mental note and a bookmark to pay attention to the BBC Book of the Week site for future reference for other readings of other books).  And then there is the Audible site where you can find and hear a three or four minute sample.  Finally, I came upon John Hockenberry’s interview with Bakewell in April of this year.  Check ’em all out.

After I mentioned our library visit last week, Herman tells me that he recently read this book as well.  But he didn’t make any further comment, except to say that he had once visited Sartre and de Beauvoir’s graves in the Montparnasse cemetery near his apartment at the time … And it was probably about the time when I first met Herman in 1960s college that I read, like many other students of that era, Sartre’s “Nausea”.  Just reminiscing … never mind.