Jean-Paul Sartre: Basic Writings

Rating:
Summary: an excellent selection
Review: As far as collections of Sartre's philosophical works go, this one is the best I've come across. The book is broken down into sections such as "Existentialism", "The Other", "Nothingness", "Politics", and so on. 16 chapters in all, each offering key excerpts from Sartre's entire corpus, especially focused on a specific philosophical matter. The editor, Stephen Priest, does a good job of introducing each chapter and his contributions offer excellent insight both to those who haven't gotten too far into Sartrean philosophy as well as those of us who occasionally need a refresher course. This book reminds me of why I first got interested in reading Sartre. It brings out the exciting spirit of Existentialist philosophy by focusing on the most poignant passages of Sartre's works. I do feel the book to be a bit pricey for a paperback, but all in all it is a rather aesthetically pleasing book. The binding and layout are high quality, as is usual for Routledge texts. Also, this book offers the complete "Existentialism and Humanism" lecture, including transcript of a question and answer forum which you will not find in most editions. Priest also does a decent job of providing biographical information in the chapter "Sartre in-the-world."

Rating:
Summary: Hard, but good if you like existentialism.
Review: The selections in this book are very good, but unless you're up for a little bit of a challenge this book isn't for you. There were an excessive amount of typos, but that is bearable. The first and last thirds of the book were most down to earth. I would strongly recomend reading some commentary along with this, though not having read any on Sartre myself I can't recommend any. There's a good chance I will re-read this book again in the future, particularly as I now want to take a class in existentialism this fall. Really, the only drawback was how hard and next to incomprehensible the reading was at times, which is typical of philosophy. I don't even agree with most of what I read, but I still value the struggle to understand it.