Sophie’s World: A Novel about the History of Philosophy

A brand-new 30th anniversary edition of the wildly popular (over fifty million copies in print!), page-turning novel about a young girl’s exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought.

Jostein Gaarder’s Sophie’s World is an exciting coming-of-age novel that thrives on its contradictions. It is a page-turning science fiction adventure as well as a history of Western philosophy--from the discourses of ancient Greece to debates about the Big Bang.

The games begin when fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen finds two notes in her mailbox. One note asks, ＂Who are you?＂ The other asks, ＂Where does the world come from?＂ From here, with the aid of a devoted but mysterious instructor, Sophie sets off on a fantastic philosophical saga that will take her far beyond her small Norwegian hometown. Letters give way to lectures, questions give way to quests, and the dimensions of Sophie’s world (as well as our own) grow ever wider, deeper, and richer.

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.