OVERVIEW
Each summer, my AP students read Jostein Gaarder’s novel of the history of Western philosophy,
Sophie’s World. They read it so we can begin our year of literary study with a better understanding of the
key questions that have concerned human beings for all of recorded history—questions like “Who am I?,”
“Is there life after death?,” and my personal favorite, “How ought we to live?” The questions that drive
philosophers are almost always the same questions that drive writers. Truly great works of literature are
always about something—there is always a point. And the point, the “so what” in a significant work of
literature is going to be a theme that is universal and timeless. It will be found to be true for all people of
all times and in all places.