There’s at least two ways to look at Jostein Gaarder’s Sophie’s World: A Novel about the History of Philosophy: as a novel, and as a history of philosophy. As a history of philosophy, a Philosophy for Dummies, if you will, I think works. It gives a compact overview of how western philosophy evolved in the… Read more »
Posts Categorized: 100 things
First Lines: Ibid, A Life
The reason I put Mark Dunn’s Ibid: A Life on my list of 40 books to read before my 40th birthday, was its novelty value. As explained in the introduction, the author wrote an biography of Jonathan Blashette (a circus performer born with three legs who goes on to make a fortune in the deodorant… Read more »
First Lines: Het verdriet van België
Hugo Claus’s semi-autobiographical Het verdriet van België (The Sorrow of Belgium) is Belgium’s Big and Important Book about World War II. It covers a lot of themes — growing up, family, Flemish small-town life, collaboration — as seen through the eyes of an impressionable child. I found it a bit of a slog. Mostly, I… Read more »
First Lines: The Dark Tower
TL;DR: I re-read Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series. One. Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came. Once upon a bye, I must have been 13 or so, I read the Dutch translation of The Gunslinger, and wrote a book report about it. I don’t recall thinking much of it. Some years later, I asked… Read more »
#36: Just sit and watch the sunset
Sunset over Florence