It's a bestseller! The Alice in Wonderland for big. Title Swiat Zofii: Sofie's World it's from Polish publisher named Jacek Santorski. The Right title it's "Sofies Verden: Sofie's World".

Me han regalado el libro por mi 15°cumpleaños. Realmente es interesante ver como se desarrolla la trama de tal manera que los personajes principales van evolucionando. Por una parte Sofía la niña que corría el riesgo de convertirse lo que se llamaría un "apatico humano" logro superarlo mediante las enseñanzas de un completo extraño. No es un libro sobre las opiniones del autor acerca de preguntas filosóficas. Al contrario si eres el tipo de persona que te agrada pensar en ellas este libro te ayudará desde el princio al final a razonarlas un poco más por tu propia cuenta y saber opiniones de antiguos filosofos que tal vez coinciden con las tuyas.

Este libro llego a mis manos por casualidad en la biblioteca de Nueva Acropolis. Concuerdo con uno de las opiniones vertidas en esta página: No es un libro de introducción a la filosofía, si estás buscando filosofía no compres este libro. Este libro es un cuento en el que el autor va dejando a medida que se desarrollan los mágicos acontecimientos de manera inteligente una breve reseña de las corrientes filosóficas, sus representantes y sus ideas. Mi formación en este campo era NULA (ese curso no lo lleve en el colegio)...después de leer este libro, me intereso la filosofía y pude comprender de que se trata. Si te gustan los cuentos ágiles, la lectura amena, quizas un poquito de suspenso, debes adquirir este libro. Disfrutarás de su lectura y adicionalmente cuando termines de leerlo, sabrás un poquito desde Socrates hasta Popper, pasando por Nietsche, Lock, Santo Tomas de Aquino, Espinoza...Me despido de Uds. me voy a leerlo de nuevo.

Este es un libro bastante entretenido sobre la Historia de la Filosofía, pero no debes catalogar este libro como un texto in extenso del tema, porque lo mas seguro es que te vas a defraudar. Cierto que nos habla de las principales corrientes filosofías, pero no debemos pretender que abarque todo el contenido de todas o de alguna de ellas, critica que imagino es con la que mas se señala este libro. Como una introducción a un curso de Historia de la Filosofía no es mejor ni peor que los otros cursos de introducción, y como quiera que sea, pasa a contar exactamente la misma historia que los demás libros. ¿qué hace entonces que este libro sea para mi especial? Es la forma en que Gaarder lo hace: convierte la introducción a la historia de la filosofía en una novela que llega a desbordar todos los limites de imaginación de una niña y su padre.

Si nunca te has interesado en la Filosofía, te aseguro que este libro clavara esta palabra en tu mente. Esto, sobretodo, si eres de aquellos que temen los libros textuales y formuleros. Pero si has incursionado en alguna corriente filosófica con alguna profundidad, no mires este libro deseando analizar lo que seguramente ya sabes de la corriente que deseas, porque es seguro que sabes mas que lo que aquí se presenta. Pero, como quiera que sea, como sucede con cualquier libro, siempre tendrás algo que aprender de el.

Firstly, i would like to confess that i am not a philosopher. Better still i know nothing about philosophy. I plucked this book off the shelf at my community library because i've heard of J. Gaarder and his better known Sophie's World (which incidentally i have not read too). Once i started reading this book however, i could not put it down. I was captivated by the twin storyline of Hans Thomas who left Norway with his philosophical father in search of his mother who had "went out into the world to find herself"; and that of Baker Hans, Albert Klages whose mother died when he was a child, Ludwig the German soldier and Frode who found himself stranded on an island with nothing but a pack of cards for company. This is a story-within-a-story in which fantasy and reality, the past and present, are brilliant mixed. I could not put the book down and had to read on chapter after chapter. Interwoven seamlessly throughout the narration are thought-provoking questions about our existence and the mystery of life. To sum up my feelings at the end of it, i was captivated, intrigued and fascinated. This book deserves a second reading and i'm only too sure that i'd enjoy it more.

After reading Sophie's World, I couldn't help but getting a second (and then a third...) book of Jostein Gaarder. He just writes in such an enchanting and skillful way, that he totally takes you inside his every novel, and you never want to come out again.

So happens with The Solitaire Mystery. It's got all of the characteristics that made Sophie's World a masterpiece: it starts out as a fairly simple story, then it tangles on another one or two intertwining stories, that evolve (as we go through them) parallel to the major story. It's got great (but controlled) imagination, and creates a beautiful atmosphere in the reader's mind, through the most successful description of places and events. Of course, all the stories come to become one at the end, and it ends almost as simply and nicely as it begun.

Overall, The Solitaire Mystery is a truly beautiful story. It's written in a simple but skilled manner, thus allowing it to be read any time of the day - it's a fast read too, since it manages to capture me and not let me go, something that very few books can do (to me!). So, here's another Gaarder classic!

You can't miss this book!
This story is about a boy named Hans Thomas who left with his father to Athens looking for his mother that eight years before had left home trying to find herself. In his way to Greece a midget gave him a magnifying glass and then the baker of a town named Dorf gave him a very tiny book inside a bun. This book has the story of his family curse and make him realized what's his destiny and solve the mystery of why his mother run away to Athens.

With this story the author wants to show the readers how wonderful and amazing life is. Just the fact of being alive is powerful and impressive. The human beings had being able to create an incredible world full of technologies that make life more comfortable and easy, but they haven't being able to realize neither how complex and organized nature and life are, nor the answer for the most basic questions like who are we? Where do we come from? How did we just appear on earth? Is there more live outside this planet?
There are just a few that maybe don't have the answers for these questions, but these questions are in their minds all the time, they are awake, they open their eyes and astonished they admire even the most little and insignificant thing. And those few are the jokers of the packs, "the ones who see too much and too deep".

I love Jostein Gaarder's works. But this one is really special. Because it helps me a lot to explain about the universe, the world, to my little daughter, in a very fascinating way. And yet so easy to understand. Mostly for children under 9 years old. I bought an extra copy from Amazon just to give it to my best friend, so she can enjoy the same experience like me and my daughter. Thank you Jostein!

Yes, this may be a children's book but for adults, the insights are invaluable and worth the read. Besides explaining simple stuff like our 5 senses, it attempts to introduce simple philosophies in life which both adult and children can appreciate.

The fantasy tale makes this an easy read but the lessons learned are definitely not child's play. "An answer is always the stretch of road tha's behind you. Only a quetion can point the way forward". Simple but nontheless true words of wisdom.

In the story, Gaarder explains the fundamental...... things can be so alike that they are different. You and me could be alike but the experiences we share each day are different and no 2 days are ordinary 'cause they are diffrent.

Read Gaarder - he makes you think and reflect on the fundamental things we may too occupied with our daily lives to think about.

When I first picked up this book I was expecting a short and yet very philosophical book on the views that we have on the world in a general sense. Seeing as this book is by Jostein Gaarder I was very surprised when I opened up the book and found that the letters were at least a cm long! But the text doesn't prove the books reading level does it? So I carried on reading in hope of finding something interesting. But the book started in a way that I thought was familiar-the book started in a way any elementary book would start. The cover is covered with bright colors and illustrations and the inside of the book is decorated now and again with pretty line drawings of animals and various characters in the book.

The story is told in an interesting way so if you read the book directly whilst ignoring the blurb on the book then you'll be confused whilst reading the very first page. "Dear Camilla," it starts. From this you can tell it's in the format of a letter. The story itself which is explained in the letter is about eight year old Joe who is about to become a big brother. The letter is written when Joe is now an 'uncle' and he writes to his niece, Camilla (his baby brother's daughter) about his experience the day his little brother (Camilla's father) was born. Whilst Joe parents are at the hospital waiting for the new baby to arrive and Joe has to stay home alone until his aunt comes. When looking outside the window Joe spots a tiny little boy hanging upside down in an apply tree in the garden. This little boy does not have any features that can be called human but both he and Joe are very alike. Mika has accidently fallen out of his spaceship and needs to go back home but he has so much he wants to know about planet earth. Joe explains everything to him about how dinosaurs roamed the earth and what a telephone is aswell as teaching Mika how to fish too. And the Mika tells Joe about his home. Mika is from Eljo, where babies hatch out of eggs and how the water in Eljo got so polluted that there is no longer any water or mammals. They talk about a lot of things and learn a great deal from each other. About how questions are more precious than answers and why gravity doesn't exist on every planet.

"Hello? Is Anybody There?" is the perfect book to read to your children etc and a wonderful book to give as a presant to anyone. Anyone over the age of 7 should find this book interesting to read. It's in the style of "The Little Prince" and has conversations that remind you of "Alice in Wonderland". I certainly enjoyed it by the end of the book-do give it a go.

::::EXTRACT::::
The next moment, here was a small boy hanging in the apple tree. "Who are you?" he asked.
"My name's Joe," I said.
"And I'm Mika. Why are you standing upside down?" I couldn't help laughing. He suddenly stuck a thumb into his mouth and began to suck it like a baby. Maybe he was embarrassed.

"You're the one who's upside down," I said. Mika pulled the thumb out of his mouth, and all his fingers began to wave. "When two people meet," he said, "and one is upside down, it isn't always easy to tell which of them is the right way up."

As suggested from the introduction, the authencity of the story shall be judged by the readers. Despite the historical accuracy, the imagination of Jostein Gaarder from the viewpoint of Floria Aemilia, writing a letter judging the Saint who has given up his family, "sensual lust" and all human desires to achieve eternal life. From the word of St. Augustine, "Thus I soiled the deep springs of friendship with impure sensual lust, and dulled its clear radiance with a hellish allure." It is challenged by the content of the letter that, such philosophy is correct to be applied to true love. Despite the philosophical arguments of the book. It is solely a book of romantic writing about a couple who has cherished their time together romantically, such as the young Aurel smelling the scent of Floria's hair on the bridge of Arno. "Can you remembered how you stroked me all over and seemed to tighten every bud before it opened itself? How you enjoyed plucking me! How you nourished yourself on my juices! And then you went away and sold me for the sake of your soul's salvation. What infidelity, Aurel, what guilt! No, I don't believe in a God who demands human sacrifices. I don't believe in a God who lays waste a woman's life to save a man's soul." It undoubtedly conclude the wrong decision of St. Augustine's inclination to complete isolation to human life.

Norwegian-born, international bestselling novelist Jostein Gaarder splendidly exhibits the timelessness, the universality, and the agony of filial, but repudiated love in his book, That Same Flower. The book, Gaarder maintains, is a genuine reproduction of a personal letter composed for St. Augustine, one of the Latin Fathers of the Christian Church and one of the greatest figures in Western philosophy, by his former lover Floria Aemilia.

Gaarder says he discovered the letter in 1995 while shopping in an antique bookstore in Buenos Aires, Argentina and agreed to purchase it from the owner for a little more than $12,000 even though it was uncertain at the time as to its authenticity. Following an examination of the letter's style, terminology and grammar, however, Gaarder says he became convinced it could have only originated in medieval days.

The letter, titled the Codex Floriae, if indeed genuine, represents a major historical find. Over the centuries, very little has come to light regarding the lover of St. Augustine and their son Adeodatus. We do know that they lived together for several years in North Africa and Italy before Augustine's conversion into the Christian faith. Previously, all that has been known about Floria Aemilia has been derived from Augustine's own writings, chiefly his famous autobiographical Confessions.

In That Same Flower, however, Floria Aemilia writes candidly of her relationship with Augustine and of her feelings about his conversion. At times she corroborates what Augustine, himself has written and portrays him as a man prone to attacks of anguish and confusion. The major part of the letter, however, is dedicated to a bitter denouncement of Augustine's decision to separate forever from both Aemilia and their son. Aemilia, it is clear does not share Augustine's faith in a God that "desires above all that man should live in abstinence...I have no faith in such a God."

Augustine, himself, suffered deep sorrow over his decision to part from Aemilia. In his Confessions, he laments, "The woman I lived with was not permitted to stay at my side...My heart, which was deeply attached to her, was pierced, and wounded so that it bled...My wound, inflicted when my relationship with the woman I lived with was brought to an end, would not heal either."

Augustine's pain, however, pales in comparison to the anguish that surges forth from Aemilia's writings. Her distress is convincing and compelling and we feel the enormity of her pain. The victim of Augustine's conversion, Aemilia expresses her heartbreak most eloquently in her letter. "My heart," she says, suffered the same hurt...for we were two souls torn from each other...because you loved the salvation of your own soul more than you loved me."

Augustine's mother, Monica was one of the factors that led to the end of Aemilia's relationship with Augustine. Monica, described as a willful and ambitious woman, by Aemilia, and one who opposed her, banished Aemilia from the household and arranged for what she assumed would be a more suitable engagement for Augustine. Rightfully expecting Augustine to come to her defense, Aemilia was crushed and defeated when he refused to do so, even though he later withdrew from the engagement.

Augustine, however, also refused to return to the one woman he truly loved. Convinced that eternal damnation could only be avoided by a total renouncement of the pleasures of the body, he withdrew from all physical pleasure, including the company of Aemilia.

Aemilia, herself, has no sympathy for Augustine's views. Instead, she views them with the utmost contempt, having no faith in a God who places the existential and spiritual worth of a man over that of a woman. "I don't believe in a God," she writes, "who lays waste to a woman's life in order to save a man's soul."

Aemilia also writes much of the medieval "theologians and Platonists" who were the influential players in Augustine's intellectual and spiritual development. Their ideas, she says, transformed Augustine from a man living a carefree existence into a God-fearing mortifier of his own flesh. Aemilia denounces these men as ruling within a "dark labyrinth" and swears that Augustine was misguided by them.

Scored with the basic theme of Augustine's anti-materialism and aversion to bodily appetites, Aemilia accuses him of carrying his denial of physical gratification to extremes, regarding everything from eating nutritious food to listening to an enjoyable piece of music as a sin against God.

And, in his Confessions, Augustine writes that the sense of hearing "offers its perilous enticements" and that "I still find satisfaction in the melodies to which your words give life and should when they are sung artistically by a fine voice...So I sin in this without noticing; but after I feel it is sin."

After reading Aemilia's letter, it is difficult to put complete faith in Augustine's self-righteous insensitivity to natural human desires, especially when one considers his weaknesses and imperfections and the severe background of his religious convictions.

Aemilia shared this disbelief and Augustine's conversion failed to convince her about the necessity of "despising this life, and about how good it is to die." It did, however, remind her of the priceless value she, herself, placed of the here-and-now. She comes to the conclusion that "it must be human arrogance to reject this life--with all its earthly joys--in favor of an existence which is, perhaps, merely an abstraction...We must first live...then we can philosophize."

We must learn to embrace both the fruits and the beauty of our own humanity and to cherish and nurture our existence during our short and precious time here on earth. This is Floria Aemilia's message to the world; the message that she went to great lengths to nurture and preserve in the letter that became That Same Flower.

That's how Jostein Gaarder titled the book, and I think it fits remarkably! It shows how we should sense our world and not just worry about the afterlife. A beautiful lovestory, and if it is true, an important historical found as well. And with the footnotes in the marrow, we get a much deeper insight to the letter than we would have with only the text.
I think it is genuine. Gaarder is not the kind of man to lie about this. With all his footnotes and even a referance to his Latin teacher at "Katta", I think he is telling the truth about how he found Codex Floriae.
Read this book! It is a beautiful lovestory, and a great introduction to the philosophical questions around St. Augustine.

Jostein Gaarder ranks right up there on my list of favorite authors, but I did not feel that this was his best effort. It is very much in the same vein of "The Solitaire Mystery" (my all-time favorite book) and "Sophie's World" (the book that inspired me to get a philosophy minor in college), but covers the same principles talked about in "Solitaire Mystery". Read that one to get your socks blown off, read "The Christmas Mystery" around December to get in the spirit of the holidays!

Although this title mostly follows Gaarder's style of beautiful writing, intertwined stories and happy ending, it's certainly written with the younger readers in mind. It is a mostly recommended read, both for kids and for adults, especially during Christmas time, which was when I read it.

It will make you integrate with Christmas ambiance and spirit, and really make you feel very... "christmassy"! At the same time, its quite entertaining and simplistic style makes it readable during any time of the day. If it grips you as it did me, you could read it overnight, although I preferred to read one chapter each day of December, as the book is designed.

Overall, if you're looking for a simple and yet clever Christmas story, for you or your kid(s), this is the one!

Every year, the 1st of December we find The Christmas Mystery by Jostein Gaarder in our box of Christmas books, and start to read the first chapter. The book has 24 chapters, so we keep on reading, one chapter every day, untill Christmas Eve. And when we read we follow the little girl Elisabet from Norway around 1940, down through Europe and down through history, untill she, in the last chapter meets Joseph, Maria and the little newborn king. At the same time we meet the boy Joakim who finds a very special advent calendar in an old bookshop, the advent calendar has doors to open, and inside the doors Joakim finds small sheets of paper telling the fantastic story about Elisabet and her travel.
Is the story just a fantasy story, or is Elisabet a real girl, doing a real travel?

The Christmas Story tells us about all this, and alot more. For our family it is a must every Christmas. Not all kids want to listen to it every year, but mother will keep on reading it as long as her eyes allows her :-)

Britt Arnhild Lindland

This book was quite disappointing when compared to Sophie's World, which was much more in depth. Through a glass, darkly had a lot of potential and would have been brilliant had it explored the issues raised like God, death and life, in more detail. This novel felt rushed and was not as enthralling as its forerunners. Still not bad, just don't expect the same quality of Sophie's World.

Through A Glass Darkly deals with the conversations between a young Norwegian girl, Cecila, and an angel, Ariel. Cecila has cancer, and her family know that she is very likely to not get better. As Christmas beckons, Ariel befriends the sick girl, and together they talk about life, death and everything in between. They have some entertaining and profound discussions about God, angels, and even children. Mortal bodies and their lives fascinate Ariel, and Cecila is interested about what life in heaven is like. When Cecila grows sicker, swinging between anger, despair, false hope and sadness, as winter passes into spring, Ariel takes her flying one night, and Cecila accepts her fate and prepares to leave...

Through A Glass Darkly is a touching and moving story about a young girl who is about to die. Cecila and Ariel are amusing and interesting characters who manage to present death in a touching way without being trite. It also will keep you thinking about several philosophical and theological issues, which Jostein Gaardner has covered in an open and simple manner.

Through A Glass Darkly is written simply but manages to convey powerful messages about life, death, God and the universe. It will keep you thinking, but keep the tissues near. It's sad but touching.

I think everybody should read not just sophia's world because it's the most famous , this is also intersting like Maya and the book of religion. I think Josten Gaarder is a man with amazing talent. through a glass, darkly is lesson about life I think everybody should read this book.

I think that Jostein Gaarder has achieved one of his goals: to write an introduction to philosophy. He has constructed the book as part fiction, part non-fiction. Sophie, the main character, gets disturbing mail she has not asked for: a correspondence course in philosophy! To her great surprise, she finds the letters very interesting. This is the part where I think Gaarder has succeded. The correspondence course is well written, especially about the older philosophers and philosophies. If you are looking for an introduction to philosophy, this is a very good start. It can also be useful if you "simply" wish to brush up your common knowledge. Gaarder is a teacher, and it shows (in a good way in this part).

However, the story surrounding the correspondence course is not that well written, in my opinion. This is not a work of an author who wishes to tell a story, to relate to mankind etc. The story is in a sense skilfully developed, but that is not enough to create a really, really good read. I think that Gaarder fails to create trustworthy characters. The reader does not identify with them (at least I did not, and I had the same problem with Das Kartengesheimnis). There is also in some places a strange lack of empathy between the characters.

That Gaarder does not write that good fiction, in my opinion, does not mean that this is not a very good book, and I still recommend it.

The bad news: It's not as good as the hype might lead you to expect. The good news: It's better than most of the other over-hyped pop-philosophy blockbusters on the shelves.

'Sophie's World' is at its worst when it pretends to be the sort of novel you would read purely for entertainment. That's because it starts out as a very good novel but finishes as a very bad one. Early on it catches your interest with an intriguing mystery and efficient classical narrative. Then about half way through, the author reveals his hand and ruins the plot. We are left with just another bit of post-modern ironic detachment or some such gimmick. From then on the fate of the characters ceases to matter, and as a novel it's all downhill from there on.

The book is at its best when it sticks to what Gaarder does best: lecturing on philosophy. This is where the fictive elements work best - by providing a character to voice the questions in our own heads. The author shows a good gra!sp of what will make sense to an uninformed reader, and provides a gentle ramble through a couple of dozen centuries of human thought that will help most people's understanding of the world in which we live.

That is not to say that Gaarder dispatches all periods in history with equal aplomb. His dealing with the metaphysical and ontological abstractions (jargon-free equivalent = world of ideas) of ancient Greece and the middle ages is exemplary. He manages to explain the more-or-less-unexplainable in terms of the easily-understood, in a way that more school texts should copy. Even the prickly thickets of 20th century existentialism yield up some of their unappetizing secrets under his patient hand.

Gaarder is least successful in dealing with creeds that go beyond pure ideas and involve a challenge to behaviour and lifestyle. His treatment of Marxism (which is not so much about ideas as it is about action) is shallow. His survey of Christianity (which is not about! ideas at all, but entirely about relationships) is derisory.

Amazon's warehouses contain better novels (for a first-class Scandinavian novel of ideas, try "Miss Smilla's Feeling For Snow") and better introductions to philosophy (e.g. Alain de Botton's 'Consolations of Philosophy'). In the end, however, 'Sophie's World' is surprisingly successful as a hybrid - it makes learning fun and deserves to be read.

'Sophie's World' is a great mixture of fantasy and philosophy. It's an excellent book especially for those who are interested in philosophy but don't know where to start. It's gentle introduction to this subject that could very easily turn into a complicated jumble of theories, fails to lose the plot, both of what Gaarder is trying to teach us and of the story. Sophie's journey through this adventure, keeps us reading, not just to learn, but to know what happens to the young girl on her birthday. The constant twists, especially at the end, inabled me to put this book down. Gaarder's explanations of certain philosophical theories makes the book a lot easier to understand, and more believable due to the fact that I doubt that many teenage girls would understand the beliefs of Ancient Greecian men if laid out to them without any trace of an explanation. Overall, an excellent read, full of adventure and theories. Highly recommended.

I bought the book in Grahamstown, SA, so what a coincidence that another reviewer is from there! Anyway, I think Maya was pretty good. Like other Gaardner books it is a bit bizarre, but this one comes together in the end. It asks some pretty profound questions - like is there a purpose to evolution - but I'm not sure that it provides much in the way of answers. It is a good, quick read, though.

This book is a real masterpiece! It's the book you will read more than one time. Each time you read it, you will discover new aspects of the story and you will feel the excitment of the first reading all over again... "Maya" causes some deep thinking on matters like the creation of the universe. The writer's thoughts about whether there is always a final cause touched me and made me a little bit of a philosopher! Was the creation of human beings the final cause of the evolution of the species throughout the years, or do we exist thanks to some random cellular divisions? The question remains ananswered so each reader can form his own opinion. Reading this book will make you realise that our existance and the world we live in is a miracle!

I've just finished reading maya and as usual Gaarder goes back and ahead in time to find out a little more about life, definetly worth reading, a little tresure book!

Joakim gots a Advent's calendar from a litle bookstore. And in every day it's tiny notes that tell him about Elisabet's travel to Betlehem, and trough time. This is a good book that touches everyones hearts. It's mysterius and sweet. Jostein Gaarder is a really good writer and al her books that i have read have been good.