Shortlisted for the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize

Paris, near the turn of 1932-3.Three young friends meet over apricot cocktails at the Bec-de-Gaz bar on the rue Montparnasse. They are Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and their friend Raymond Aron, who opens their eyes to a radical new way of thinking

Its not often that you miss your bus stop because youre so engrossed in reading a book about existentialism, but I did exactly that... The story of Sartre, Beauvoir, Camus, Heidegger et al is strange, fun and compelling reading. If it doesnt win awards, I will eat my copyIndependent on Sunday

Bakewell shows how fascinating were some of the existentialists ideas and how fascinating, often frightful, were their lives. Vivid, humorous anecdotes are interwoven with a lucid and unpatronising exposition of their complex philosophy Tender, incisive and fairDaily Telegraph

Quirky, funny, clear and passionate Few writers are as good as Bakewell at explaining complicated ideas in a way that makes them easy to understandMail on Sunday

Sarah Bakewell was a teenage existentialist, having been swept off her feet by reading Sartre'sNausea, aged 16. She is the author of three biographies, including the bestsellingHow to Live: A Life of Montaigne, which won the Duff Cooper Prize for Non-Fiction and the National Books Critics Circle Award for Biography in the US, and was shortlisted for the Costa Biography Award and the Marsh Biography Award.