Rating: 
Summary: intresting, compelling and fun
Review: This book was very intresting and I just wanted to keep reading. I didnt think i could learn that much information from one book.
It really gives you a bases of understanding of philosophy. With intresting analogys continuing mysterys and people always letting things "slip" it keeps you reading. They only thing i was dissapointed with was the ending. It seemed cut short and unfinished.
Rating: 
Summary: Plato's shadow
Review: The consensus of reviewers seems to be that Sophie's World fails as a novel but succeeds as an introduction to philosophy. I found the book to fail as much as an introduction to philosophy as it does as a novel. In fact the book is not an introduction to philosophy at all but an introduction to the author's take on various philosophers, which is a very different thing. It is as if an author presented an introduction to classical art that consisted of a book of his sketches of the Sistine Chapel and the Mona Lisa, or an introduction to classical music that consisted of a tape of him humming a few bars of Beethoven's Fifth or the Messiah. Great artists, musicians and philosophers are great precisely because they do what they do so much better than we ordinary mortals do. This is not snobbishness. The snobbishness consists in thinking that by distilling Plato's philosophy into a few paragraphs one can communicate Plato's philosophy as well as or better than he did. This is an acceptable procedure only if an author makes it clear that what he is doing is necessarily inadequate, and does it in such a way that the reader is encouraged to read the philosophers themselves and not rely on a distillation. An introduction should whet the appetite for a philosopher, not satisfy it. A good example of a book that does just this is G.K. Chesterton's book on Thomas Aquinas. Read Chesterton on Aquinas, then Gaarder, and you will see just how inadequate Gaarder's approach to Aquinas is.
Gaarder's "summary" approach to the philosophers results in some unintentionally hilarious moments. His take on Plato consists almost entirely of a lecture - one of the longest in the book - on Plato's theory of Ideas. Many pages later, when discussing Hume, Sophie has this to say:"Your philosophers are always talking about 'man' and 'humans', and now here's another treatise on 'human nature.' It's as if this 'human' is a middle-aged man. I mean, life begins with pregnancy and birth, and I've heard nothing about diapers and crying babies so far. And hardly anything about love and friendship." Plato, of course, was deeply concerned with love and friendship and wrote some penetrating work on the subject in the Symposium, Lysis, Phaedrus and other dialogs. The trial and death of Socrates as written by Plato in the Apology, Crito, and Phaedo may be understood as an extended meditation on the true meaning of friendship. How can someone have been "introduced" to Plato yet think that no philosopher up to the time of Hume ever talked about love and friendship? Because in this book we get Gaarder's Plato, not the real Plato, and Gaarder's Plato is only interested in what Gaarder is interested in, specifically the theory of ideas. He is but a shadow of the real Plato and is well-deserving of Sophie's scorn, as are all the other cardboard-cutout philosophers that fill the book. The danger is that a reader will think the washed-out Plato we get in Sophie's World is the real Plato and be deterred from reading Plato himself. There is no indication that Sophie herself has any interest in reading Plato. Why should she? As far as she knows, Plato is just a quaint old guy with some mildly interesting but ultimately irrelevant thoughts about eternal forms. It would have been far better if those brown envelopes Sophie discovered contained some actual Platonic dialogs rather than mediocre summaries of them. The same holds for most of the other philosophers in the book, and the reader would be well-advised to read the philosophers themselves rather than Gaarder's (or mine, or anyone else's) summaries of them. Kierkegaard wrote better than anyone who writes about Kierkegaard.
A minor but irritating feature of the book is Gaarder's elevation of contemporary feminist ideology to what amounts to a philosophical first principle. The end of Gaarder's lectures usually consist of a thumbs-up or thumbs-down on the philosopher in light of contemporary feminism, regardless of what came before. Aquinas was bad because he didn't think women could be philosophers. Plato was good because he thought women might be. We might agree with Plato against Aquinas, but as philosophers we should not accept feminist ideology uncritically anymore than we do Plato's theory of ideas or Aquinas's proofs of the existence of God. It is precisely the vocation of philosophers to sniff out these cultural givens that are "obvious" to everyone and put them under rational scrutiny. Socrates did it to the ancient Greek's uncritical acceptance of mythology. I wonder if he would do it today to Gaarder's uncritical acceptance of feminism?
Rating: 
Summary: A brilliant, complex, fascinating novel
Review: I was saddened to see that some reviewers called Sophie's World "simple" and "disappointing." I first read the book several years ago in a high school class. Since then, I have never forgotten how emotionally moving and brilliantly written the book is. I returned to it recently. After the first few chapters I could not put the book down. Even though I knew how it would end, I had to stay up all night to finish it! There are so many things I love about the book. First of all, the main character is young, which makes her easily identifiable to young readers, and will let older readers see the world through her not-yet-jaded eyes. I also loved that the history of philosophy was such an integral part of the novel. Sophie's World is not a philosophy book with a story written around it, nor is it a novel with philosophy stuck awkwardly in. The two elements of the story weave together seamlessly to create a perfect symbiotic relationship. Although the philosophy is explained in easy-to-understand terms, the novel itself is complex, working on several different layers, and full of well-placed irony. It also addresses in a new and interesting some of the fundamental questions of human life, in the philosophy course and in the narrative: who are we?, why are we here?, and where did we come from? It is a fascinating, mind-exanding novel that I would recommend to anyone who wants an intellectual and fun novel.
Rating:
Summary: Very simple introductory book
Review: This is a simple read and easy to understand book about the history of philosophy. Major concepts and ideas of various philosophers are introduced in the contents of a story about a young girl receiving a mysterious mail. The book covers philosophical ideas from pre-Socratic era to modern time. The author was successful in relating the development of different thoughts. Plenty of examples are given to clarify the philosophical concepts and the story itself elicits the reader to reflect and ponder about the presented ideas.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I read this book (almost) because I was genuinely interested in researching some philosophy from a standing start. A novel seemed like a good place to start. I've started to read it 5 or 6 times, but still not managed to finish it. I have to say I found it too slow and predictable. There is very little to disguise the fact that it is a series of history of philosophy essays. No subtley in the anonymous letters metaphor. No characters or narrative to capture the imagination. By contract Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is an evocative roller-coaster ride, that nevertheless exposes important themes of philosophy. No contest.
Rating:
Summary: Sophies World by Jostein gaarder
Review: I read Sophies World in a time of my life where I was just getting interested in Philosophy. Academically it is a brilliant book to get you started and give a brief overview of what many different famous phliosophers have written over the course of history. It does not include material of the philosophers in question but provokes a strong interest to be followed up on later. As for a good read, this takes concentration, although the storyline that runs throughout the book is a good aide to help you keep your mind on the right track. Feeling as if I was almost the Sophie in question I learnt all I needed to if I wanted a basic education in Philosophy and it served as a good foundation to bounce off into this fathomless subject. Disappointing as the ending to the book was I do believe Sophie was only a guideline for the reader, hence the four stars and not five. Nevertheless this book proved its worth academically and socially by the many books sold and the fruit of the seed sown in each readers mind!
Rating:
Summary: Great
Review: This book was really great. It made you think of things that you would normally never think of. Although some of the histories of philosophy could get a little boring, other more interesting parts make up for them.
Rating: 
Summary: A great book on philosophy but lacks as novel
Review: I read this book after reading The Solitaire Mystery (also by Jostein Gaarder) which also dealt with philosophy but was very interesting. Sad to say, although Sophie's World is very rich with the philosophic ideas, it lacked on characteristics of being a good novel. It seemed to me to be more of a book on philosophy instead of a novel (or maybe, it really is intended as a philosophy book). I feel like taking a course on philosophy, which is actually interesting though. However, the characters were not given enough depth e.g. Sophie, Albert, Hilde, or even the dog Hermes. Their appearances were merely to break the monotonous lecture about the different philosophers, their ideas & their projects. If you are highly interested on the topic of philosophy, you might enjoy reading this book, as it summarizes the evolution of philosophy throughout the ages, compressing it in approx. 400 pages. However, if you are not that keen, I suggest you stick with The Solitaire Mystery instead. I have yet to read JG's other books to determine if the writer has improved novel writing techniques.
Rating:
Summary: Sort of Okay
Review: Basically this is a bit of pro philosophy propoganda. A young girl recieves a mysterious letter asking her some questions about her identity. You know, not like her name but in reality who is she. She then starts to recieve an course in philosophy. The book is moderately interesting as it keeps us wonderning who our heroine is and who is the mysterious Major in the peace keeping force in Lebanon. Basically however it is an attempt to popularize philosophy as an area of interlectual interest. It doesn't do a bad job but the reality is that philosophy is dying. It was a thought system which developed in the Greek world to supply a non religous explanation of natural phenomena. At the time of Hume we had a split. Hume developed a theory of empirical knowledge and rejected all of the complex systems which had been developed prior to him. Philosophy very much lives on as a historical study into these old thought systems which have little value in the real world. After Hume philosophy tended to become an ethical and historical area. The rise of science has marginlised it in life and also in academic institutions. This book doesn't really look at whether philosophy is a live discipline. In fact the only critism it makes of the discipline is of Plato's theory of forms. Still attempts to popularise things seldom are in depth studies so that one should not complain to much. If you are interested in learning about philosophy from someone who likes it this is your book. If you are sceptical about it steer away.
Rating:
Summary: Incredibly Wonderful book
Review: This is a wonderful book! It will get you thinking...
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