Sophie's World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy

Sophie's World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy

by Jostein Gaarder
Translated by Paulette Møller

March 20, 2007 | Trade Paperback

Based on 30 ratings | Rate this | 27 reviews
A page-turning novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought, Sophie''s World has fired the imagination of readers all over the world, with more than twenty million copies in print.

One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning--but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.
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Sophie's World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy

Sophie's World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy

by Jostein Gaarder
Translated by Paulette Møller

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From the Publisher

A page-turning novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought, Sophie''s World has fired the imagination of readers all over the world, with more than twenty million copies in print.

One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning--but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.

About the Book

A page-turning novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought. In order to answer two existential questions, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning--but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.

Format: Trade Paperback

Dimensions: 544 Pages, 5.51 × 7.87 × 0.79 in

Published: March 20, 2007

Language: English

The following ISBNs are associated with this title:

ISBN - 10: 0374530718

ISBN - 13: 9780374530716

Read from the Book

The Garden of Eden    . . . at some point something must   have come from nothing . . .   Sophie Amundsen was on her way home from school. She had walked the first part of the way with Joanna. They had been discussing robots. Joanna thought the human brain was like an advanced computer. Sophie was not certain she agreed. Surely a person was more than a piece of hardware?   When they got to the supermarket they went their separate ways. Sophie lived on the outskirts of a sprawling suburb and had almost twice as far to go to school as Joanna. There were no other houses beyond her garden, which made it seem as if her house lay at the end of the world. This was where the woods began.   She turned the corner into Clover Close. At the end of the road there was a sharp bend, known as Captain''s Bend. People seldom went that way except on the weekend.   It was early May. In some of the gardens the fruit trees were encircled with dense clusters of daffodils. The birches were already in pale green leaf.   It was extraordinary how everything burst forth at this time of year! What made this great mass of green vegetation come welling up from the dead earth as soon as it got warm and the last traces of snow disappeared?   As Sophie opened her garden gate, she looked in the mailbox. There was usually a lot of junk mail and a few big envelopes for her mother, a pile to dump on the kitchen table before she went up to her room to start her homework
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From the Critics

"First, think a beginner's guide to philosophy . . . Next, imagine a fantasy novel-something like a modern-day version of Through the Looking Glass. Meld these disparate genres, and what do you get? Well, what you get is an improbable international bestseller . . . [A] tour de force." -Time
 
"This book contains a novel mantra for those days when the world gets in your face."-Entertainment Weekly
 
"Extraordinary…read it for yourself."-Newsweek
 
"A simply wonderful, irresistible book...a cross between Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy and Alice in Wonderland."-Daily Telegraph
 
"Sophie's World is sheer delight. How I wish I'd had it during my college freshman survey of philosophy!"-Madeleine L'Engle

About the Author

Jostein Gaarder was born in Oslo, Norway, in 1952. He taught high-school philosophy for several years before publishing a collection of short stories in 1986 and, shortly thereafter, his first two novels, The Solitaire Mystery and Sophie's World, and several others since then. He lives in Oslo with his family.
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