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Montaigne in Barn Boots: An Amateur Ambles Through Philosophy

Montaigne in Barn Boots: An Amateur Ambles Through Philosophy

Current price: $29.95
Publication Date: November 7th, 2017
Publisher:
Blackstone Publishing
ISBN:
9781538489246
Pages:
0

Michel de Montaigne may have created the essay form, but Michael Perry has perfected it. Readers will enjoy Perry's astute meditations on life as he contemplates subjects as diverse as chickens, marriage, and kidney stones. Known for his trademark Midwestern wit and wisdom, Perry will have readers laughing out loud and then commenting on how profound he is. Well done!

Pamela Klinger-Horn, Excelsior Bay Books, Excelsior, MN
November 2017 Indie Next List

Description

The beloved memoirist and bestselling author of Population: 485 reflects on the lessons he's learned from his unlikely alter ego, French Renaissance philosopher Michel de Montaigne

The journey began on a gurney, writes Michael Perry, describing the debilitating kidney stone that led him to discover the essays of Michel de Montaigne. Reading the philosopher in a manner he equates to chickens pecking at scraps--including those eye-blinking moments when the bird gobbles something too big to swallow--Perry attempts to learn what he can (good and bad) about himself as compared to a long-dead French nobleman who began speaking Latin at the age of two, went to college instead of kindergarten, worked for kings, and once had an audience with the pope. Perry matriculated as a barn-booted bumpkin who still marks a second-place finish in the sixth-grade spelling bee as an intellectual pinnacle ... and once said hello to Merle Haggard on a golf cart.

Written in a spirit of exploration rather than declaration, Montaigne in Barn Boots is a down-to-earth (how do you pronounce that last name?) look into the ideas of a philosopher ensconced in a castle tower overlooking his vineyard, channeled by a Midwestern American writing in a room above the garage overlooking a defunct pig pen. Whether grabbing an electrified fence, fighting fires, failing to fix a truck, or feeding chickens, Perry draws on each experience to explore subjects as diverse as faith, race, sex, aromatherapy, and Prince. But he also champions academics and aesthetics, in a book that ultimately emerges as a sincere, unflinching look at the vital need to be a better person and citizen.