Books by Simone de Beauvoir
“It’s extremely important not only for understanding Beauvoir’s later works and her philosophical framework, but also because even some of the best secondary literature on Simone de Beauvoir in English says that she was not critical of Sartre. But it’s clear that she was critical of him. Pyrrhus and Cinéas gives us the first published record of their disagreement.” Read more...
The Best Simone de Beauvoir Books
Kate Kirkpatrick, Biographer
“It is a very moving memoir of the death of someone she loved and reflections on mortality. But it also shows some of the things that preoccupied her throughout her life in terms of, ‘What is the right balance of love?’ “ Read more...
The Best Simone de Beauvoir Books
Kate Kirkpatrick, Biographer
“This is an amazing travelogue. It shows the way she viewed the world when she travelled to other places. It captures that kind of in-betweenness that people feel when they’re not at home, but discovering something that they’ve longed to see for a long time.” Read more...
The Best Simone de Beauvoir Books
Kate Kirkpatrick, Biographer
“I recommend this novel in part because many people think that Beauvoir doesn’t become a political person until the writing of The Second Sex. In fact, her fiction from the 1940s shows that a lot of the preoccupations she had about women’s roles in society and the way they’ve been conditioned by history stretch quite a way back into her past.” Read more...
The Best Simone de Beauvoir Books
Kate Kirkpatrick, Biographer
“Strikes me as a much more insightful and interesting analysis of the problem of absurdity than Camus’ The Myth of Sisyphus” Read more...
Underrated Existentialist Classics
Jonathan Webber, Philosopher
“Not quite a novel and not quite a collection of short stories either… You can see the important features of Beauvoir’s philosophy that she develops in more detail in the 1940s.” Read more...
Underrated Existentialist Classics
Jonathan Webber, Philosopher
“A huge survey of the state of old age. It hadn’t been done before. She wrote it after she wrote The Second Sex…Old Age is a huge survey of the state of old age. It hadn’t been done before. There was some stuff from classical literature, but there wasn’t a contemporary survey. Some of it has dated because it’s to do with France in the 1960s and ’70s, but some of it is as relevant as it always was.” Read more...
Margaret Drabble, Biographer
“She looked at what biology, history and literature had to say about what it meant to be a woman and she came to the conclusion that these things really only gave people a definition of what it meant to be a woman from the standpoint of famous men. Nobody had ever asked, to her satisfaction, the question of what it means to be a woman to women themselves.” Read more...
The Best Simone de Beauvoir Books
Kate Kirkpatrick, Biographer
Interviews where books by Simone de Beauvoir were recommended
The Best Simone de Beauvoir Books, recommended by Kate Kirkpatrick
Simone de Beauvoir is remembered today as the pioneering feminist author of The Second Sex and a close companion of Jean Paul Sartre. But the scope of her intellectual contribution has long been underestimated, argues her latest biographer Kate Kirkpatrick, who offers an introduction to the landscape of Beauvoir’s works, from fiction to philosophy to life writing.
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1
The Philosophy of (Erotic) Love
by Edited by Robert C Solomon and Kathleen M Higgins -
2
The Second Sex
by Simone de Beauvoir -
3
Tête-à-Tête: The Lives and Loves of Simone de Beauvoir & Jean-Paul Sartre
by Hazel Rowley -
4
Dialogue on the Infinity of Love
by Tullia d'Aragona -
5
All About Love: New Visions
by bell hooks
The best books on Philosophy of Love, recommended by Skye C Cleary
The best books on Philosophy of Love, recommended by Skye C Cleary
What is love? Can you choose to do it? If love ends, was it really love? The author and academic Skye C Cleary selects five key texts that deal with philosophy of love, whether romantic, erotic, familial or platonic.
The best books on Women in Society, recommended by Erica Jong
The celebrated feminist gives us her view of essential reading for women – and says the gender revolution is far from over
Key Books in the History of Women Readers, recommended by Belinda Jack
The freedom to pick up a book is something we take almost for granted today but women readers have faced all manner of obstacles throughout history, says Professor Belinda Jack, author of The Woman Reader. She recommends five key texts in the history of women readers.
The best books on Ageing, recommended by Margaret Drabble
Is old age necessarily degrading? Should we leave home in our final years? Is there ever a good time to go? Novelist, biographer and critic Dame Margaret Drabble, now aged 80, discusses the difficult questions that arise as we age—and recommends five books that examine them in depth.
Underrated Existentialist Classics, recommended by Jonathan Webber
As questions of identity become a focus of political debate, interest in existentialism has been booming once more. Here, the philosopher Jonathan Webber discusses five classic books dealing with existentialist themes that deserve a bigger audience.
