Jostein Gaarder books

Jostein Gaarder books list

Welcome to the philosophical world of Jostein Gaarder. This collection of Jostein Gaarder books is sure to keep you intrigued ...

Jostein Gaarder books list

The Orange Girl by Jostein Gaarder

VOGUE
'it should be read by all.' -- This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

HEAT
'A modern fairytale.' -- This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

(Source: Amazon UK 1 December 2005)

US UK Canada Paperback book (July 2005)

US UK Canada Hardcover book (October 2004)

The Orange Girl by Jostein Gaarder

Jostein Gaarder

Category: Books by Jostein Gaarder

Look inside the pages of the hardback edition of The Orange Girl (UK Page)

The Solitaire Mystery by Jostein Gaarder

Jostein Gaarder

Category: Books by Jostein Gaarder

Look inside the pages of The Solitaire Mystery (UK Page)

The Solitaire Mystery by Jostein Gaarder

Book Description
A journey, an adventure and a philosophy class in one amazing book.

Synopsis
Twelve-year-old Hans and his father have left home to search for Hans's mother. She went to Greece to 'find herself' when he was four. Hans's father loves to philosophise on life (and to drink) and Hans is always happy to listen. But this turns out to be a strange journey. A dwarf in Switzerland gives Hans a magnifying glass. Next day a baker gives him a bun with a tiny book in it. As Hans begins to read the book, he discovers an incredible cast of characters, from a shipwrecked sailor to a Joker who looks too deeply and too much. The more he reads, the more Hans begins to think that the book is trying to tell him something about his own life. But will it help him to find his mother? An incredibly imaginative book, that lingers in the mind long after the last page has been read.

(Source: Amazon UK 1 December 2005)

US UK Canada Paperback book (October 2004)

US UK Canada Hardcover book (June 1996)

The Christmas Mystery by Jostein Gaarder

Yoga & Health, December 1, 2003
...an atmospheric Christmas tale for the whole family.

Bournemouth Daily Echo, 15 November 2003
"Entertaining, informative and magical."

(Source: Amazon UK 1 December 2005)

Amazon US UK Canada (Various editions)

Note: the childrens editions of this book tend to be abridged. Direct links to specific editions have not been attempted due to major differences in availability!

The Christmas Mystery by Jostein Gaarder

Jostein Gaarder

Category: Books by Jostein Gaarder

Look inside the pages of The Christmas Mystery - Abridged childrens edition (UK Page)

Look inside the pages of another edition of The Christmas Mystery (UK Page)

The Ringmasters Daughter by Jostein Gaarder

Jostein Gaarder

Category: Books by Jostein Gaarder

Look inside the pages of The Ringmasters Daughter (UK Page)

The Ringmasters Daughter by Jostein Gaarder

In an old fairy story Panina Manina, a trapeze artist, falls and breaks her neck. As the ringmaster bends over her he notices an amulet of amber around her neck, the same trinket he had given his own lost child, swept away in a torrent some sixteen years earlier. The theme of a father finding a long-lost daughter runs through this novel which is told by Petter, a precocious child and fantasist - a Norwegian Billy Liar. Petter's magical interior world contains Metre Man, a midget with a green felt cap and a bamboo cane; Metre Man runs his life and urges him to do things. As an adult, Petter's incredible imagination leads him to become a ghost writer known only as The Spider but he become involves in a sequence of literary deceits which are brought to a head at the Bologna Bookfair at the same time as events conspire to bring him face to face with his own long-lost daughter. (Source: Amazon UK 1 December 2005 - Hardcover edition)

US UK Canada Paperback book (September 2003)

US UK Canada Hardcover book (2002)

Maya by Jostein Gaarder

AmazonUK Review Jostein Gaarder is not one to shirk at the larger questions: who are we? and where does the world come from? In his ... novel, Maya, he once again addresses life, the universe and pretty much everything else, concentrating on the existence of God, the evolution of life as we know it, the nature of consciousness and the meaning behind it all. It's weighty stuff for a mere 300 or so pages of prose, and Gaarder is not entirely successful in dealing with these issues in a readable manner.

The novel is set in Madrid and on the unspoiled Fijian island of Taveuini. Frank Andersen, a Norwegian evolutionary biologist who feels "oppressed by the grief that the lack of spirit and permanence in our existence brings", meets up with a beautiful Spanish Flamenco dancer, Ana, her companion Jose, and an English writer from Croydon, John Spoke. They then discuss the big issues. This is where the problem arises; there is too much discussion of ideas and not enough emotional involvement or development of characters. They exist merely as mouthpieces for different theories. Gaarder then adds a bewildering supernatural dimension. There is Ana and Jose's manifesto, a mystical dialogue that describes the creation and evolution process in a series of self-consciously obscure metaphors to consider; hints of past lives; a time-travelling dwarf; and an enigmatic photograph. All this excitement sits uneasily with the almost pedantic prose style.

Gaarder's forte is to incorporate challenging themes into a flowing, imaginative narrative. The author's earlier novel, Sophie's World, has been a phenomenal success; the novel has sold over 16 million copies, been translated into 42 languages and is a whistle-stop tour of philosophy, from Socrates to Sartre. Unfortunately in the case of Maya, the story fails to grip the reader enough and lacks the fluidity of prose that made Sophie's World such a delight to read. -- Eithne Farry -- This text refers to the Hardcover edition. (Source: Amazon UK 1 December 2005)

Note: Amazon UK readers appear to have given it a much better review...

US UK Canada Paperback book (July 2001)

US UK Canada Hardcover book (December 2000)

Maya by Jostein Gaarder

Jostein Gaarder

Category: Books by Jostein Gaarder

Look inside the pages of Maya (UK Page)

Through a Glass Darkly by Jostein Gaarder

Jostein Gaarder

Category: Books by Jostein Gaarder

Look inside the pages of another edition of Through a Glass Darkly (UK Page)

Through a Glass Darkly by Jostein Gaarder

As Cecilia lies ill in bed and her family valiantly make their Christmas preparations in the knowledge that she is not going to get better, an angel steps through her window. There follows a series of conversations between Cecilia and her angel as she prepares herself for dying. (Source: Amazon UK 1 December 2005)

Note: Although the subject sounds upsetting this book tends to get good reader reviews.

US UK Canada Paperback book (January 2001)

US UK Canada Hardcover book (December 2000)

Hello? Is anybody there? by Jostein Gaarder

Amazon.co.uk Review. In this book about the wonder of life by the author of Sophie's World, eight-year-old Joe is about to become a big brother. His mother is in labour at the hospital when he looks outside and sees a little boy hanging upside down in an apple tree. It's Mika, who has just fallen out of a spaceship. Mika is from Eljo, where children hatch out of eggs and life in general is quite different from what Joe knows. Mika and Joe become instant friends and spend the day discussing everything from dinosaurs and gravity to the origins of life on Earth. The next morning Mika is gone, but Joe has a new-found appreciation for the wonders of the universe -- and a baby brother!

Illustrated with whimsical line drawings -- and framed by thought-provoking questions: "Can animals think?"; "what would you say if you had a visit from another planet?" -- Hello? Is Anybody There? challenges readers to look at the world afresh, much in the manner of The Little Prince. (Source: Amazon UK 1 December 2005)

US UK Canada Paperback book (January 2001)

Hello? Is anybody there? by Jostein Gaarder

Jostein Gaarder

From the author of Sophie's World - a story for children that opens up the wonders of the universe. Frontcover

Category: Books by Jostein Gaarder

Look inside the pages of Hello? Is anybody there? (UK Page)

That Same Flower : Floria Aemilia's Letter to Saint Augustine by Jostein Gaarder

Jostein Gaarder

Category: Books by Jostein Gaarder

That Same Flower : Floria Aemilia's Letter to Saint Augustine by Jostein Gaarder and Anne Born

Amazon.com Review : In his first and most famous novel, Sophie's World, the Norwegian Jostein Gaarder took on the entire history of Western philosophy, neatly sandwiching Socrates, Sartre, and everybody in between into a series of letters to a 14-year-old schoolgirl. This time around, Gaarder has again produced a philosophical novel in epistolary form. In That Same Flower, however, he narrows his focus to a single figure -- St. Augustine, the Bishop of Hippo, whose classic Confessions anticipated the current memoir boom by almost 16 centuries. The saint himself fails to get a word in edgewise. Instead, the book consists of a long, grief-stricken letter from his former mistress, Floria Aemilia (a figure whom the author has reconstructed from passing references in Augustine's own writings). This most articulate correspondent has a good many bones to pick with her former lover; he abandoned her on several different occasions, often at the behest of his 4th-century yenta of a mother, and kept her from the child they had together. Yet along with these personal matters (and perhaps inseparable from them) is Floria's critique of Christian dogma -- particularly the ascetic tradition that Augustine embodied. Deriding his renunciation of all earthly pleasures, she reminds him of the good old precelibate days: "Can you still remember how you stroked me all over and seemed to tighten every bud before it opened?... 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 to a woman's life in order to save a man's soul." An erudite and intelligent argument on behalf of the senses, That Same Flower is also an oddly moving love story -- or at least half of one -- with an unmistakable feminist twist. (Source: Amazon US 1 December 2005)

US UK Canada Paperback book (February 1998) - Different title Vita Brevis : Floria Aemilia's Letter to Saint Augustine

US UK Canada Hardcover book (1998) That Same Flower : Floria Aemilia's Letter to Saint Augustine

Sophies World - A Novel About the History of Philosophy by Jostein Gaarder

When 14-year-old Sophie encounters a mysterious mentor who introduces her to philosophy, mysteries deepen in her own life. Why does she keep getting postcards addressed to another girl? Who is the other girl? And who, for that matter, is Sophie herself? To solve the riddle, she uses her new knowledge of philosophy, but the truth is far stranger than she could have imagined. A phenomenal worldwide bestseller, SOPHIE'S WORLD sets out to draw teenagers into the world of Socrates, Descartes, Spinoza, Hegel and all the great philosophers. A brilliantly original and fascinating story with many twists and turns, it raises profound questions about the meaning of life and the origin of the universe. (Source: Amazon UK 2 December 2005)

Note: This is a fairly long book and is not just for teenagers! It's one of those books you either love or hate... I've read it twice in English and once in German, so I think that puts me in the first class ...

US UK Canada Paperback book (August 1997)

US UK Canada Paperback book (March 1996)

US UK Canada Hardcover book (1995)

Sophies World - A Novel About the History of Philosophy by Jostein Gaarder

Jostein Gaarder