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Summary: Wonderful for anyone studying Philosophy or Western Civ...
Review: Hello! I'm a college freshman in Washington, and I've just read "Sophie's World." It has been a tremendous help in my "History of Western Civilization" class, and quite interesting! I *highly* reccomend this book not only as a rescource, but as an entertaining novel!
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Summary: This is really handy.
Review: I wish I had purchased this book before I took my humanities course last semester. It gives a basic rundown on all the major philosophers, although I wish he had elaborated more on Nietzsche.
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Summary: more engaging than the average textbook; weaker as a novel
Review: Billed as a novel, this book is much more didactic than I had expected. The first third or so moves slowly, with little story stringing the philosophy lessons together. The book improves as a mystery unfolds. The mystery is solved long before the end of the book, however, after which the story becomes more and more absurd.
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Summary: the best book
Review: i randomly picked this book up at an airport newstand to give me something to do on my flight. the minute i began the book, i couldnt put it down. what would ordinarilly have been a boring philosophy text was intertwined with an imaginative storyline that kept up my interest. the philosiphy itself is presented in an easy and understandable form, so that complex ideas are grasped. reflections by the main character, Sophie, add a realistic tone to the history and add to understanding. the plot itself takes some surprising twists in the story. although the philosophy around the middle of the book becomes a bit lengthy and tiresome, keep going for the story itself, which will not disappoint you. reading this book several years back has lead to numerous rereadings and a lifelong interest in philosophy.in a nutshell, the best book ive read in a long time!!
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Summary: A donut!
Review: Rather than being a book to recommend to beginners in philosophy, Sophie's World is a harmful book for the uninitiated since it does not deal with the most important philosophers of the (and for the) 19th and 20th Centuries, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche.The author is not expected to deal with every philosopher. However, to omit Schopenhauer altogether and reduce the great Nietzsche to one sentence tears the heart out of the book. The book cannot claim to contain a legitimate overview of the world's important philosophers when it relates the ideas of Marx and Freud apparently at the expense of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. I would advise those who have read the book to study the impact that Schopenhauer and Nietzsche have had on the 20th Century, not to mention the influence they had over great artists such as Wagner and thinkers such as Freud. As far as recommending the book as a novel ... forget it.
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Summary: What a textbook could be, if only their writers knew so well
Review: My longtime friend has been after me to read this for an eon, it seems, but it just sounded too dull to me: "a novel about the history of philosophy." I mean, '[my friend] taught philosophy for years; of course, he'd like something that is subtitled like that' -- so I thought too hastily. But, as I should know by now, [my friend] is not a fan of things dull, no matter what their subject. So, I picked this up on impulse at the misnamed Rutland Free Library ($20 per year). Reading it: imagine two things, one easy to come by, one almost impossible: a fine fantasy based in reality (easy to conceive and very much like the fiction of C. S. Lewis) and an actually entertaining and clear textbook (almost impossible to imagine; perhaps such an idea is the real fantasy here). At any rate, I now want four copies of the book: one for each of my children, one for myself to scribble notes into and to underline, and one for my high school English classroom, where I may begin to read a chapter per week to the senior Pacesetter group, something I'm giving very serious consideration. This is a very satisfying book, on several different levels. I'd bought one for the classroom before I'd finished reading it.
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Summary: It was a school assignment
Review: I had to read this book for my 9th grade Intro to Ideas class. While many of my peers despised the book, I somewhat liked it, but only because I had already had an innate interest in philosophy. Yes, this is a thinly disguised textbook with a ridiculous, unimaginitive plot. The book would actually have been better as a textbook without the pathetic storyline, or whatever storyline you try to make out of it
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Summary: The best book that I ever read
Review: This book pacts a real interest in the story and gives an overall feeling of all the major philosophers. If anybody had ever wondered about philosophy and the subject matter of the major philosophical views, then this book is the best one to read.
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Summary: A refrence book turned entertaining.
Review: The book Sophies World is a book that should be turned into required reading for all high school students. As a student I found an incredible base to the philosophy world with this book. A well thought out plot takes the reader through unseen twists in the story creating a whole new world. Philosophy is great to begin with, but Sophie's world makes it all the better.
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Summary: Like a text book
Review: This book was very exciting when I started it. Very thought-provoking and original, and at first I loved the information about the different philosophers and their views, but as I read further into the book, it started to be too much like a text book for my taste. The book is in fact very informative, but just became too long and text book like. There's definately something there, but the book lost my attention.
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