"For me, Bento’s Sketchbook, though it’s about drawing and flowers and Velasquez, among other things, is actually a political book. It’s an attempt to look at the world today and to try to face up to both the hope and despair that millions of people live with. In some very small and personal way, that’s what I wanted to address with this book." (John Berger in The Paris Review).
Vignettes of writing by Berger and Spinoza, with sketches by Berger (who trained as an artist). The drawings were inspired by the historical fact that Spinoza carried a sketchbook of his drawings with him, but that none such sketchbook, nor any drawings, have ever been found.
