Book review: How to live by Sarah Bakewell

Michel de Montaigne, the 16th-century French nobleman, was the first person to write an account of his thoughts in the first person.

Montaigne lived in the Dordogne; he was a local politician at a time of civil war and religious strife. One day he had a riding accident and nearly died. He became obsessed with death. Then he realised that you can never experience your own death. What a relief! Later, he wrote, superbly, about more or less everything, and Bakewell, in this book, which was shortlisted in for last year's Costa Biography award, is excellent at teasing out why he was able to do so.

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