As promised, here’s the first of this year’s German Literature Month giveaway’s.
I’m giving away the Pushkin Press edition of Austrian author Stefan Zweig’s Montaigne. While Zweig has written short stories, novellas, and novels, he also wrote a great many essays and biographies. Montaigne isn’t his most famous but that doesn’t mean it’s not a very interesting book. The topic certainly is.
Here’s what the blurb has to say:
Stefan Zweig was already an émigré-driven from a Europe torn apart by brutality and totalitarianism-when he found, in a damp cellar, a copy of Michel de Montaigne’s Essais. Montaigne would become Zweig’s last great occupation, helping him make sense of his own life and his obsessions-with personal freedom, with the sanctity of the individual. Through his writings on suicide, he would also, finally, lead Zweig to his death.
With the intense psychological acuity and elegant prose so characteristic of Zweig’s fiction, this account of Montaigne’s life asks how we ought to think, and how to live. It is an intense and wonderful insight into both subject and biographer.
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If you would like to win a copy of Zweig’s Montaigne, please leave a comment. The only thing you have to do is to tell me why you’d like to win this book.
The giveaways is open internationally. I’ll announce the winners on Monday 7 November 17:00 – Western European time.
THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED
Beauty is a Sleeping Cat 
I would like to win this, as I love books that make us ponder how we ought to think and to live, and do so with elegant prose! 🙂
Hello Caroline and Lizzie. Thank you for providing such thoughtful commentary on so many books that I love the sound of, but many of which I have not even heard, here in Brisbane. I do not know Zweig’s work, but if he writes elegantly, as you say he does, then I feel bound to read him. When I studied French and philosophy at university I was introduced to Montaigne and loved the thoughtfulness of his work. I would love to read what Zweig has to say about him and the Essais and to explore Zweig further, if I like his style.
Thank you again for all you do. I always look forward to reading your thoughts and have followed up on a number of your suggestions thus far. It was a lucky day when I found your blog. Have you looked at Brain Pickings by the way? If not, I would highly recommend that site to you, as I am sure you would love it.
Kindest regards,
Diane
Thank you so much for your kind words, Diane.
I’m so glad you found books you enjoyed and that you like the blog.
I will look up Brain Pickings, thank you. I think I’ve come across it once but have forgotten all about it.
I’ve read Sarah Bakewell’s life of Montaigne – How to Live and I like Sweig but didn’t know he’d written about Montaigne. So I’d love to read it!
Hi Caroline. Having just finished one of Zweig’s novellas, I would love to have a chance to read this book. It sounds really interesting and very different to his fiction. Thanks for the opportunity to enter the giveaway. 🙂
I have read some of his short stories and found them interesting but never a novel. Thanks for the opportunity and I hope whoever wins it enjoys it.
Hello Caroline,
It sounds fascinating and Zweig is an author that I haven’t yet got around to reading. Thanks for the giveaway.
Last year I chanced upon two Collected Short Stories books by Zweig at a sale and the stories I have read from those books were charming. I also rather enjoy biographies and would really like to get this book. Thanks for the giveaway. 🙂
I’ve only read excerpts from Montaigne, sadly.
My image of him is of a wise man, a man who valued friendship and grieved his friend La Boëtie and someone not too much in awe of power since “Sur le plus beau trône du monde, on n’est jamais assis que sur son cul.” (Even on the most powerful throne in the world, one only sits on their ass)
Perhaps reading his bio would push me to read his Essais.
You’d like his writing. I’m sure. I’m less sure though whether you’re entering the giveaway or not. 🙂
If you want to read him make sure you start with the collection with the shorter essays. I think it’s number I anyway.
I would very much like to read this one day, but don’t enter me in the giveaway, Caroline–my TBR pile has gotten out of control. 😉
Same here. 🙂 I need to read this one some day too.
I recently started reading Zweig, and I don’t know why I didn’t try reading him earlier. ‘Beware of Pity’ is now on my list of all-time favorites, so it would be great to win one of his other works.