A page-turning novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought, Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World has fired the imagination of readers all over the world, with more than twenty million copies in print. 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 irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning—but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.
According to J. C. Ryle, next to praying there is nothing so important in practical religion as Bible reading. God in his mercy has given us a book 'which is able to make us wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus' (2 Tim. 3:15). By reading the Bible we may learn what to believe, what to be, and what to do; how to live with comfort, and how to die in peace. Can anything, therefore, be more important than being in possession of a Bible? However, to have a Bible is one thing, to read it is quite another. Happy is the one who not only has a Bible but who reads it, obeys it, and makes it the rule of one's faith and practice! In this little book Ryle clearly explains why we ought to value the Bible highly, to study it regularly, and to make ourselves thoroughly acquainted with its contents. This book consists of material extracted from Ryle's Practical Religion, which is also published by the Trust.