I loved loved loved Sophie's World, although I have only read it once. I think a better introduction to Gaarder's work and his style might be The Solitaire Mystery,. which I have read several times. (It's a good comfort book.)

I think the end of SW gets a little too... odd, and it seems to distract from the rest of the book. SM is more consistent all the way through. Both strike me almost as children's books, very Alice in Wonderland -ish. Now with added philosophy! (Disclaimer: I read SW right after taking an Intro to Philosophy course, that may be why I found it interesting. I read SM shortly after reading SW.)

Gaarder really does introduce the philosophy in a very basic way in both books. In SW, Sophie is sort of taking a beginner's correspondence course, and in SM, a father is teaching his child on a trip. The philopshy is really presented more as separate from the story but is still integral to each story's resolution.

I think both are great books, and I hope you find the story interesting enough to not abandon it because of the philosophy.

Beverly, I really liked Sophie's World, though I thought The Solitaire Mystery was better at integrating the philosophy into the story. My brother and I both read it [edit: SW] several years ago while on a family vacation in Italy. My brother doesn't really like to read very much (evidence that he's really a changeling baby, I'm sure), and he was only 11 or 12 at the time, but for some reason he adored Sophie's World and raced through it. I'd never seen him take such an avid interest in a book before, and it was pretty cool to see. So that's high praise!

Thanks. I may pick up The Solitaire Mystery to read first.

Beverly, if you think of it, when you're going to read Sophie's World, remind me, please. It's been in my TBR file for yonks. I have only not read it because there's never any quiet here.

But not that song; I've got Peter Wolf version somewhere, but not as effective. Although, since the Hungarians tend to have the highest suicide rate of any country, a few dozen in a year doesn't seem that odd.

I think the only real oddity was how many people the song in particular was the final nudge for. But yeah, grim Eastern European nation to begin with, just came through a Depression that made ours look like a party, and then staring down the barrel of Hitler's panzers... you can see how the population might have been primed for the song when it made suicide seem all romantic and soothing.

Really, the tacked-on third verse so dispels the gloominess of the song that I think Billie's "Strange Fruit" ends up being more morbid and creepifying.

It may be a while, Cindy. And I may wait till I've read The Solitaire Mystery. This is, you realise, after I finish HP OoTP, Sorcery and Cecelia, Mairelon the Magician, the Sharpe DX loaned me, and Fast Women, all of which I'm in at the moment. But I'll try and let you know when I start it. Or you can just arbitrarily pick it up and tell me....

Beverly and Cindy pass away at a good old age, never having cracked the cover of Sophie's World...

Sci Fi Wire has a snippet of HP + the Half-Blood Prince.

Or you could try to figure out how to get there on the JK Rowling website.

One of the books I finished this weekend was Anne Kelleher's Silver's Edge. This is a book from Harlequin's Luna imprint -- which I heard bad things about upthread -- well people seemed unimpressed with the Mercedes Lackey book from them. I really enjoyed Silver's Edge except that as I got nearer to the end it became more and more obvious that it wasn't going to finish in one novel. Drat!

However, it is the first half in a duology not a trilogy which is a relief. (I've only recently picked up the fifth book in what was supposed to be the Crown of Stars trilogy.)

I loved Sophie's World, Bev. May have to dig it out again one of these days.