Existential Book Club discussion

January's book will be At The Existentialist Cafe by Sarah Bakewell. This is just a heads-up for anybody who wants to buy/borrow the book in time.

Feel free to posts thoughts and discussion points here. I look forward to reading it!

This is the perfect introduction book to Existentialism and I am tempted to re-read it with everyone else because I enjoyed it so much

I've already read this one, but I may reread as a refresher. I enjoyed it so much the first time through, and I would love to be able to discuss it with others this time.

This book is high on my "to read" list, so a good way to make it a priority!

It's going to be harder than I thought for me. The book seems to be having a shipping time of 2-4 weeks on the places I looked, and the paperback edition is only coming out in March (a Dutch translation is available, but I rather go for a copy in the original language).

Do you people have some tips where an English edition is still available online?

Hey Niels, the only thing I could suggest is looking for an ebook of it which you can then use on a Kindle app. I've just bought the hardback myself from Waterstones but don't know if they'd ship to you? If not, you could try Book Depository, The Book People or Book Outlet. If you don't find it in time then I wouldn't worry as we'll probably continue discussions into the year. Hope some of this helps :)

Thanks for the help Rachel, I bought the copy with the shipping time of 2-4 weeks. You're right that starting a little later, shouldn't really be a problem.

My copy just came through the post so I'll start reading asap. It looks really good, excited to share my thoughts.

Hey guys. I finished the book not long ago and thought it was incredible. The extent of Bakewell's research was astounding, and I thought she did a great job of joining both biography and theory together.

I think I'm interested in hearing everybody's opinions on Heidegger to be honest. I'm under the impression now that he was a real arrogant guy, especially in the ways he treated other philosophers and his reluctance to dismiss his past. Haven't read any of his work yet but that seems to be kind of alienating too with his use of complicated language. Perhaps it's supposed to be patronising? I don't know, guess we'll have to read some and see.

I also really enjoyed reading the bits about how they all fell out over politics (even though it hurt me a bit to see them argue), and the anecdote about Camus getting hit in the face. For some reason I love little stories like that.

Anyway, hope everyone's enjoying it too.

I'm going through the re-read. I learnt so much from this book and the re-read is offering so much more. I love how accessible she makes the philosophy. I wish there were more books like this

I have just finished re-reading the book and echo Michael's comment about getting more out of it the second time. I am interested in peoples' views on Bakewell's definition of existentialism on page 34. It seems to rely a lot on Sartre's philosophy and I wonder if notions of absurdity (Camus) and being-in-the-world (Heidegger) should be mentioned even though both Camus and Heidegger didn't acknowledge themselves as existentialists!

Great book! My interest in philosophy has reborn, after reading it!

Also just finished the book, and I'm very impressed. I think Sarah Bakewell did a more than fantastic job of writing a sort of autobiography of modern existentialism, the key players and some of their key concepts.

At first I hoped there would be some more Camus in the book (maybe because I know his works best), but in the end I don't mind. This book really makes me even more enthusiastic to dive into some of the works/concepts talked about in the book. Especially Kierkegaard and Husserl's phenomenology. I even got interested in the ideas of Heidegger, someone I always completely ignored because of his Nazi sympathies, and because I found his way of writing impenetrable. Dasein, Mitsein and all that other Heideggerian terminology always scared me of, but Bakewell did a great job in making it at least somewhat more understandable.

I read this a couple of weeks ago and loved it. It was well-written and informative while being an entertaining read as well. I would recommend it as a primer for anyone interested in Existentialism, but has yet to read much on the subject.