At the Existentialist Café

Western Thought was the philosophy class I took during my senior year of high school. It was a life-changing class for me. We read philosophy starting with Plato and Aristotle, and we discussed what we read. We discussed and discussed and discussed. You couldn't stop thinking about the readings and the discussion. It was that good.

We spent a few weeks on Existentialism, but I always wanted to know more. This book is my first real venture into Existentialism since high school and college. It's completely readable; lots of times I felt like the author was taking me aside for a few minutes and talking straight to me. It's about philosophy, of course, but it also about the lives of the people who mulled over, who crystallized the philosophy. You have heard all the names, I bet, but this author shares so many anecdotes, letters, gossip, teasers that I wondered over and over where she got her information.