The Essays are divided into three Books - I posted on Book I and the first half of Book II back in 2010, now have completed all three Books (except for just skipping around in the lengthy Apology for Raymond Semond).
There's too much content to attempt to usefully summarize.
I see that I dogeared a bunch of the essay "on husbanding your will" - written later in the author's life so perhaps especially congenial to me? The notion of "starting carefully" - be wary what you start and how you start it - much easier to manage at the early stage rather than later. You initially own a project, and then eventually it owns you.
Lots of discussion about the value of getting to know oneself - a high-value pursuit, invest your energy here. Don't worry so much about judging others! Best part is you will start seeing how little you know, how often you are swayed by priors.
As I wrote in 2010 - (1) much seems obvious, yet it is written in a way that's fresh and useful; and (2) somehow readers always see themselves in Montaigne's writings (even readers coming from disparate viewpoints and widely differing points in history). Nobody can quite figure out how he achieves this.
Pretty clear that it continues to be well worth working through these.
