Everything is happening so much in the world outside this Report. While I wish I would have read more books in January, I don’t regret the things I did instead of reading—I spent quality time with loved ones, helped my neighbors in various ways, and developed new practical skills such as sewing. Some months bring greater clarity than others about what we do with our one wild and precious life, and this month led me to double down on whatever could help reinforce my sense of self as a human being who has agency and autonomy and who lives in a society (if we can keep it). Heavy emphasis on the italicized terms because of course those are the very things that fascism seeks to obliterate.
With that said! I now return to “stick[ing] to [book reports]” on the assumption that you, like me, enjoy having a space where it’s possible to step away from the horrors by focusing on my unhinged write-ups of books I read.
How did a trip to San Antonio find me visiting the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston this month? A little thing called “free will.”
What I read in January:
Jostein Gaarder, tr., Paulette Møller, Sophie’s World (1991/1994)—In retrospect, lol, lmao even, at me saying in the December Report that “maybe” I would “try” rereading Sophie’s World. There was never going to be a maybe or try about it! I’m a single-brain-cell-having dog, and literary explorations of philosophical concepts are currently the toy I’m refusing to release from my jaws. As a pure mood reader,1 I must go where my mood takes me, and right now my “desire for escapism,” my feeling of “I want to get away from this moment, because this moment makes me feel bad”2 is taking me into the cozy embrace of philosophical inquiry filtered through fiction.
Yes, it is a novel about philosophy—I’m taking a little creative license here.
So, Sophie’s World, which I first read when I was 17 years old—a fact I’m only confident about because I kept my receipt inside the book—and which is a book from another century and an altogether totally different moment in time. Specifically, from a moment in time when a book about the history of western philosophy that was written for a young adult audience could be a global bestseller,3 captivating readers of all ages. Well, it captivated me in 2004 and it captivated me in 2026!
Other ways this novel is from a different moment in time (descriptive statement):
The “postmodernism for babies” of it all—Sophie, the protagonist of the novel, discovers halfway through the book that she is not a real person but rather a character in a novel that a man named Albert Knag is writing for his daughter Hilde. Sophie and her philosophy teacher, Alberto Knox, then take this epiphany and seek to break out of the literal narrative that confines them, to slip outside of their author’s consciousness. This idea first crystallizes for them during the chapter on the Enlightenment, and from that point on, Sophie’s story begins to play out the philosophical concepts that Alberto is teaching her, while her “world” continues to expand beyond the boundaries of her experience and into the world of Hilde, who receives and begins reading Sophie’s World on her fifteenth birthday. This all, to me, is giving classic 1990s (complimentary).4
The worldview that informs the narrative—surely a large part of the novel’s fundamental belief in the ability of people and countries to work toward, let alone have, shared goals, is due to Gaarder’s own context as a Norwegian and as a high school teacher. But another part of it is that Gaarder was writing in that post-WWII, post-Cold War, pre-9/11 moment when so much “progress” seemed possible?
Maybe what I really mean is, I miss the world that produced Sophie’s World, the world where Sophie, talking to a chatbot, immediately understands what it is and therefore also what its limitations are, tells it to “shut up!” (189), and closes out of the “dialogue.” The world where the only reasonable/logical thing for a character to say about “artificial intelligence” is that it “is the automaton of our time. We have created machines that can sometimes deceive us into believing that they are intelligent [but] . . . [t]he human soul is naturally infinitely more complex than any data program” (187). The world that didn’t encounter a chatbot and clamor to hand over their brains to it, using it as a search engine, an oracle, a companion, and an employee even though the chatbot 1) is a garbage search engine; 2) “cannot offer real wisdom;” 3) is definitely not a real or good friend, because real and good friends don’t encourage you to harm yourself, and 4) also isn’t an employee or coworker you’d want to work with if you were the one accountable for checking and signing off on its “work,” because it sucks at that too. But I digress!Back to the worldview thing, but thinking about it from the reception angle, Sophie’s World was wildly popular when it was first published. Gaarder was surprised at how many people were enthusiastic about a book about the history of philosophy, sure, but can you imagine this book or a book like it becoming the next surprise BookTok Phenomenon today? Actually, given the real popularity of I Who Have Never Known Men (Jacqueline Harpman, tr. Ros Schwartz, 1995/2018), as well as the steam being gained by On the Calculation of Volume, it’s not not possible?
What it will be like when the BookTok girlies join me
Anyway, I switched between reading my physical copy of the book and listening to it while practicing sewing buttons or untangling the yarn I have from the last time I pursued knitting as a hobby. And I found both activities—reading this book and learning a practical skill—to be immensely calming and rewarding.
Oh also, I can now say with confidence that On the Calculation of Volume is VERY MUCH the spiritual heir to Sophie’s World. I already loved the first three books in the series, but I love them even more when I think of them as Sophie’s World for adults in the twenty-first century.
Finally, I want to give thanks both to the person who owned my copy of the book before I did, because they cut out from the newspaper a hilariously negative review of the book and put it inside the book, and to the book buyer at Half-Price Books who left the review inside for the next person who would own the book (me!).
This review appeared in the March 17, 1996 edition of the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
What I’m looking forward to reading in 2026:
Per my annual disclaimer, the below list is not spon con, as I yet again and as always, despite my complete lack of effort, have not become an influencer.
Any month in parentheses=when a book releases, not when I plan to read it!
Patrice Nganang, Scale Boy: An African Childhood (January)
Thomas Dekeyser, Techno-Negative: A Long History of Refusing the Machine (March)
Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Night Owl: Poems (March)
Solvej Balle, tr. Sophia Hersi Smith and Jennifer Russell, On the Calculation of Volume (Book IV) (2022/April)
Maria Semple, Go Gentle (April)
Marlen Haushofer, The Fifth Year (May)
Jorie Graham, Killing Spree (May)
Ann Patchett, Whistler (June)
Joanna Kavenna, Seven (July)
Emily St. John Mandel, Exit Party (September)
Min Jin Lee, American Hagwon (September)
1 The ghost of Jean-Paul Sartre, close your eyes, I know I’m making a choice!
2 Both quotations are from an interview with McNally Jackson Books editor, Jeremy Davies, who identified a specific kind of escapism driving the current popularity of reissued books.
3 According to this article in the Times, it did . . . “okay” in the US.
4 The video game based on the book is also giving 1990s in a way that is irresistible and wholly appealing.
