While introducing the general reader to the works and approach of the great man, Kent takes the opportunity to look at modern phenomena - everything from alcohol and celebrity culture to government, sport and the arts - and to give them all the same quizzical, self-deprecating analysis that Montaigne himself might well have done.

“What sets Montaigne’s 107 essays apart from just about any others past or present is their creator’s open-mindedness and the breadth of subject matter he addresses: ‘I enter into discussion and argument with great freedom and ease,’ he wrote. ‘No propositions astonish me, no belief offends me, whatever contrast it offers to my own. There is no fancy so frivolous and so extravagant that it does not seem to me quite suitable to the production of the human mind.”’

With that objective in mind, Kent sets out to examine the modern world through the eyes of perhaps the finest essayist of all time.

Paul Kent is a Londoner by birth and inclination. His childhood was spent in Blackpool, where he was educated, before gaining a place at St. Catherine’s College Oxford to read English. He’s not sure whether he can claim an MA, as he failed to attend the relevant ceremony; however, he’s certain he did not complete his Doctoral thesis, being lured away by the BBC a few weeks prior to submission. He stayed with the Corporation for 12 years, as Producer and Commissioning Editor with the World Service and Radio 4. As Programme Director of Oneword Radio, he steered the digital station to two Sony Gold awards, then gave it all up to travel the world. He currently earns his crust as a freelance writer, script editor and radio producer.

Details

• Published 13th January 2011
• B Format Hardback
• £14.99
• 352 pages

Rights

World