Will I love Sophie's World?

I gave this book to my eldest daughter when she was about 12, and many years later, she told me it absolutely blew her mind.

It is a young adult book that covers much the same ground as Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, with a history of Western philosophy and the questions it throws up woven into an engaging story of a young girl and her mysterious tutor. 

Towards the end, the narrative takes an unexpected postmodern turn, and it had me gripped as it raced to its conclusion. Brilliant.

In this masterpiece, Jostein Gaarder presents the whole history of philosophy in the form of a novel. This is by far the most interesting historical presentation of philosophy I have ever come across. The genius of Jostein Gaarder could be clearly seen in the narrative as he does not just explain the ideologies of the philosophers across the decades, but also picks some ideas, visualize them, and smoothly integrate them into the story. 

This is one of my all-time favorite novels. The setup is fantastic. One day a young girl, Sophie, comes home from school to find two questions, Who are you? and Where does the world come from? From there, she and the reader learn much about the history of philosophy. It’s one of the most thought-provoking novels I’ve ever read, and I can’t recommend it enough.