Simon Critchley

A highly entertaining route into philosophers and their theories, this perfect book to dip into as well as absorb at length is full of quirky stories from prolific, bestselling author and philosopher Simon Critchley.Critchley pulls readers in with hilarious short stories of how various philosophers died and then linking this to their central ideas. He then confronts the big themes-in this case, what "a good death" means and how to live with the knowledge of death and free from what he calls "delusions and sophistries."Entries run from a couple of sentences in the case of the Pre-Socratics or minor Medievals and Moderns, up to a paragraph and short essays of about 800 words for such as Socrates, Seneca, Rousseau, Kant and Nietzsche.

The Book of Dead Philosophers

Kathryn Reyes

** spoiler alert **
           Really liked the IDEA of this book. A quick synopsis of the life and, most importantly, the death of famous philosophers in history. The overall theme of the book was Montaigne's definition of philosophy, living life by how you view death. Very interesting and very insightful. I enjoyed the humor and irony in the manner of death of the philosophers, but, for this same reason, I didn't enjoy it. When starting the book, I expected a bit more irony in each synopsis. I thought the author was setting out to make light of death by, in essence, saying, "This guy believed this. Isn't it funny and ironic that he died THIS way?" Maybe, I even expected the author to be communicating some sort of dark, pessimistic message..."Life and what you believe are pointless...because you're gonna die anyway!" But, I think his message was closer to..."Worrying about death is pointless...because death is universal! Everyone does it!" Obviously, I can't speak for the author, but this is the kind of theme that came across. Another issue I had was the brevity of the philosopher's bios. I felt it would have been helpful to give more information about what they stood for so that we could see the possible irony in their deaths.