Sophie's World cover art

Sophie's World

A Novel About the History of Philosophy

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Sophie's World

By: Jostein Gaaardner, Kitt Weagant
Narrated by: Jacob Needleman
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About this listen

One day, 14-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find two notes in her mailbox, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?"

From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning—but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.

©1996 Jostein Gaaardner (P)1996 Phoenix Books, Inc. Genre Fiction Literary Fiction World Literature Middle Ages

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All stars
Most relevant
A real head spinner! Makes you really think, and also want to find out more about philosophy.

Interesting introduction to philosophy

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If this was the original book version I would have given it 5 stars, but I can't give that to this. Unfortunately this is an abridged version, and it misses out many of the nuances that makes the original so incredible.

Admittedly I downloaded this not realising it was abridged, but the edit makes no sense, why not just record the whole book. I did listen to the whole book and it was ok, but the magic of the full original was sadly missing for me. I hope one day they'll release the full unabridged audio book. A huge missed opportunity to bring a classic to new audiences.

Upsetting

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This book does not only provide short introduction to main philosophy schools, but also the concept of the book is interesting and it develops as the story continues. I would just complain that this book focuses exclusively on western philosophy completely ignoring any other geographies which also have a lot of wisdom, often much older that the European one.

Very interesting book

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I love this book, but the audiobook doesn't specifically this is not the original, but a summary of sorts. I spent one credit on it, and honestly I feel a bit scammed...

This is not the actual book

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I expected an unabridged version,
Further annoyed by patronising message at the end thanking me for paying and warning me not to share.

Purchased in error

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