Joseph Epstein's Four Volumes of Mini-Biographies

I only have the single volume "Section," but it's enjoyable

Seven and a half centuries before Bodhidharma started Zen by melding Buddhism to Taoism, Chuang-Tzu danced through the world. This sly jester is second only to the old sage Lao-Tzu in Tao greatness. Chuang-Tzu championed wu-wei—the art of non-doing, of letting the world spin without your sweaty grip on

Montaigne spat on every dogma and system that strutted through the intellectual barnyard of his day. His motto: Que sais-je? (What do I know?) His answer, delivered with a smirk: Not a daggone thing. “There is a plague on man: his opinion that he knows something.” Montaigne Logic? Pfft. He’