Novels
- The Frog Castle (1988)
- The Solitaire Mystery (1990)
- Sophie’s World (1991)
- The Christmas Mystery (1992)
- Through a Glass, Darkly (1993)
- Hello? Is Anybody There? (1997)
- Maya (2000)
- The Ringmaster’s Daughter (2002)
- The Orange Girl (2004)
- The Castle in the Pyrenees (2010)
- The World According to Anna (2015)
- An Unreliable Man (2018)
Collections
Chapbooks
- That Same Flower (1996)
Picture Books
- Questions Asked (2017)
Novels Book Covers
Collections Book Covers
Chapbooks Book Covers
Picture Books Book Covers
Jostein Gaarder Books Overview
The Solitaire Mystery
Twelve year old Hans Thomas lives alone with his father, a man who likes to give his son lessons about life and has a penchant for philosophy. Hans Thomas’ mother left when he was four to find’ herself and the story begins when father and son set off on a trip to Greece, where she now lives, to try to persuade her to come home. En route, in Switzerland, Hans Thomas is given a magnifying glass by a dwarf at a petrol station, and the next day he finds a tiny book in his bread roll which can only be read with a magnifying glass. How did the book come to be there? Why does the dwarf keep showing up? It is all very perplexing and Hans Thomas has enough to cope with, with the daunting prospect of seeing his mother. Now his journey has turned into an encounter with the unfathomable…
or does it all have a logical explanation?
Sophie’s World
One day fourteen year old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: Who are you? and Where does the world come from? From that strange but irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with these and other questions that explore matters both small and large, some that take her mind far beyond what she knows of her family and life in her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving a separate batch of equally unusual letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up in Sophie’s World? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must make use of the philosophy she is learning but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined. A page turning novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought, Sophie’s World has fired the imagination of readers all over the world, having been translated into forty five languages and with over twenty million copies in print.
The Christmas Mystery
The Christmas Mystery transcends all barriers. We all love a beadtime story and here we have a philosophical meditation wrapped in the simple clothes of a journey across Europe to Bethlehem. The qualities of wonder and enquiry that readers loved in SOPHIE’S WORLD are as strong as ever in this beautiful and mysterious story. This has a metaphysical matrix that brings in God and doctrine in a way that will appeals to believers and non believers alike. A boy called Joachim acquires a strange old Advent calender and uncovers from it the story of a girl called Elisabet, who disappeared from her home fifty years earlier. Elisabet has been taken back through time and right across Europe to Palestine, to see the Holy Family in Bethlehem. Two thousand years of history flash by, and angels, shepherds and wise men join her on her joyful pilgrimage. It is Joachim who, through the Advent calendar, makes it possible for her to come home.
Through a Glass, Darkly
As Cecilia lies ill in bed and her family prepare for Christmas, knowing she will not recover, an angel steps through her window. But Ariel is no ordinary angel at least, he does not conform to conventional ideas of what an angel looks like and says. He likes nothing better than to sit around and chat about life, death and the universe. Through a Glass, Darkly is a springboard for a spirited and thoroughly engaging series of conversations between Cecilia and her angel. As the weeks pass and winter turns to spring, subtle changes take place in the relationship between Cecilia and her family, as she swings from feelings of anger and denial, hope and despair, to a calm acceptance of her lot. She is preparing to leave…
Hello? Is Anybody There?
A 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 labor 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 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 in the manner of The Little Prince.
Maya
Thrown together for three days on the paradise island of Taveuni, a lonely Norwegian biologist, a bereaved English novelist, and a strange and beautiful Spanish couple so much in love they seem to have evolved a private language, fill the long Pacific nights by playing bridge, telling stories, and discussing ideas. This brief encounter is no mere interlude, but the start of an intertwined story, full of illusion and allusion, that will unfold many months later. Part tragedy, part mystery, and, above all, a love story, Maya debates and unravels the questions that give meaning to the lives of its characters and to our own. Jostein Gaarder is the author of Sophie’s World, a huge bestseller in over 40 countries.
The Ringmaster’s Daughter
Panina Manina, a trapeze artist, falls and breaks her neck. As the ringmaster bends over her, he sees around her neck an amber charm just like the one he gave his own child before she was swept away in a torrent 16 years earlier. This tale is narrated by Petter, a precocious child and a fantasist, and perhaps Jostein Gaarder’s most intriguing creation since Sophie. Petter makes his living selling stories and ideas to authors suffering from writer s block. It s a lucrative trade, but as he sits like a spider in the center of his web, Petter finds himself in a trap of his own making. Jostein Gaarder is the author of Sophie’s World, a huge bestseller in over 40 countries.
The Orange Girl
At fifteen, Georg comes upon a letter written to him by his dying father, to be read when he comes of age. Their two voices make a fascinating dialogue as Georg comes to know the father he can barely remember, then is challenged by him to answer some profound questions. The central mystery of The Orange Girl is the story of an elusive young woman for whom Georg’s father searches in Oslo and Seville and whom Georg finally realizes is his mother. This is a thought provoking fairy tale romance imbued with a sense of awe and wonder. Jostein Gaarder is the author of Sophie’s World, a huge bestseller in over 40 countries.
The Castle in the Pyrenees
Through five intense years in the 1970s, Steinn and Solrunn had a happy life together. Then they suddenly parted ways, for reasons that are unclear to both. In the summer of 2007 they meet again on a balcony of an old wooden hotel by a fjord in western Norway. It is a place they both have fond memories from, and their meeting turns out to be fateful. But is it purely coincidental that they meet at that particular spot at that particular time? Over a couple of weeks that summer they write emails to each other, and it becomes clear that they have been living with very different interpretations of their shared past. The Castle in the Pyrenees is both a love story and a novel of ideas, exploring the place of human consciousness in the universe. Its main theme is of great current interest: can scinece explain everything, or does some invisible force influence our lives?
That Same Flower
A fictional love letter to St. Augustine from Floria Aemilia, his longtime concubine, by the author of ‘Sophie’s World’. A true historical figure, Floria lived with St. Augustine for over a decade, during which time they had a son together. He ‘renounced’ her when he elected to spend the rest of his life abstaining from sensual love. In some sense a feminist missive, this passionate and occasionally erotic letter challenged the Church’s view of women and of love .
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