REVIEW: HOW TO LIVE, OR, THE LIFE OF MONTAIGNE by Sarah Bakewell

I must say, I prefer biographies of this sort.  It’s far too arrogant for a biographer to think they can just begin at the beginning and go from there.  Bakewell instead takes a more meaningful approach to a thinker, philosopher, and writer four-hundred years and a language removed.  She drops in, like a neighbor stops…

REVIEW: THE VICES by Lawrence Douglas

Ah, the holiday season… Time to gather with family and surround oneself with warm, comforting memories.  Or, more realistically, subdue rising anxieties about the perfect meal, dodging insults about your housekeeping abilities, the way you are bringing up the kids, avoiding this year’s taboo topic, and desperately hoping your gift will meet with a less-whithering…