Title: Sophie's World
Author: Jostein Gaarder
Blurb: Sophie Amundsen is fourteen years old when the book begins, living in Norway. She begins a strange correspondence course in philosophy. Every day, a letter comes to her mailbox that contains a few questions and then later in the day a package comes with some typed pages describing the ideas of a philosopher who dealt with the issues raised by the questions. Although at first she does not know, later on Sophie learns that Alberto Knox is the name of the philosopher who is teaching her. He sends her packages via his dog Hermes. Alberto first tells Sophie that philosophy is extremely relevant to life and that if we do not question and ponder our very existence we are not really living. Then he proceeds to go through the history of western philosophy. Alberto teaches Sophie about the ancient myths that people had in the days before they tried to come up with natural explanations for the processes in the world. Then she learns about the natural philosophers who were concerned with change. Next Alberto describes Democritus and the theory of indivisible atoms underlying all of nature as well as the concept of fate.
Bio on Author: The author (Jostein Gaarder) is a Norwegian man, born on the 8th of August 1952. He has written several novels, short stories and children's books. Most of his work is from the perspective of children.
My Thoughts: I really enjoyed this book a lot. I found my self eagerly going to pick the book up and read at least a chapter when ever i could. This book probably appealed more to me than some one who doesn't love philosophy, but even if you don't like philosophy it's still a great read. The book has various chapters on many of the most famous philosophers and their theory's on how the world came to be.
The main character Sophie is just a young school girl who had never though about life or how humans started to vacate the Earth until she starts getting letters in the mail asking her simple questions, like "what came first the chicken or the egg". Through out the hole book every question asked made me think also about all the possibilities and outcomes that could have happened if i were just born into another family, would i look the same, would i talk the same, would i speak another language! That's one of the things that made me love this book, the odd questions that led up to something really unexpected.
Favorite Quotes:
"The only thing we require to be good philosophers is the faculty of wonder"
"'God' is not a name, any more than 'Father' is a name."
"Wisest is she who knows, she does not know"
-Kait
Amen.. Is all I would say..
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