Sarah Bakewell
British writer of biography and intellectual history; author of How to Live: A Life of Montaigne, At the Existentialist Cafe and Humanly Possible.
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Recommends rcmnd
rcmnd What they recommend 7 things — each backed by an exact quote.
Compiled by rcmnd.app, not by them: the quotes are theirs, and each links to the post it was copied from.
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Recommends Being and Time
Then, once you've read an overview and feel equipped and ready for it, it's really worth plunging into either Being and Time itself, Heidegger's greatest and richest work, or to a compilation.
fivebooks.com 2 Jun 2013
Loved Heidegger: An Introduction
Richard's Polt's Heidegger: An Introduction is one of the best I've come across. It's a fantastically clear and concise exploration of Heidegger's philosophy, concentrating on his first great work, Being and Time, though he also covers the later writings of Heidegger.
fivebooks.com 2 Jun 2013
Recommends The Existentialist Reader
So this is just a fantastic compilation of existentialist arrows that you might want to follow into different thinkers.
fivebooks.com 2 Jun 2013
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Recommends Man's Search for Meaning
I chose this book because it's an incredibly powerful and moving example of what existentialist thought can actually be for in real life, what good it can do, how it can help people.
fivebooks.com 2 Jun 2013
Recommends Nausea
I chose Nausea for several reasons. One is that it's the first existentialist book that I ever read. It's what first made me curious to learn more, and that's exactly what the book does. It's readable, it's powerful, it's sometimes a bit ridiculous, but it's intense.
fivebooks.com 2 Jun 2013
Recommends Notes from the Underground
Another writer often mentioned is Dostoyevsky: a great way of getting into the real miserabilist side of existentialism is to read his Notes from the Underground. It absolutely captures the anguish of being an isolated individual and a misfit, wondering about your place in the world and being contrary, fighting against the normal human life that you're supposed to fit into.
fivebooks.com 2 Jun 2013
Loved Existentialism: A Reconstruction
This is a fabulous, clear introduction to existentialist thought. It's also very philosophically rigorous.
fivebooks.com 2 Jun 2013
Where they publish
Site sarahbakewell.com Her own site: books, news and events.
Link verified 5 Sept 2026.
Blog sarahbakewell.blogspot.co.uk Her older Blogger blog, still linked from her site.
Open sarahbakewell.blogspot.co.uk
Link verified 5 Sept 2026.
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