Rating: 
Summary: Beautiful story
Review: After reading Sophie's World, I couldn't help but getting a second (and then a third...) book of Jostein Gaarder. He just writes in such an enchanting and skillful way, that he totally takes you inside his every novel, and you never want to come out again.So happens with The Solitaire Mystery. It's got all of the characteristics that made Sophie's World a masterpiece: it starts out as a fairly simple story, then it tangles on another one or two intertwining stories, that evolve (as we go through them) parallel to the major story. It's got great (but controlled) imagination, and creates a beautiful atmosphere in the reader's mind, through the most successful description of places and events. Of course, all the stories come to become one at the end, and it ends almost as simply and nicely as it begun. Overall, The Solitaire Mystery is a truly beautiful story. It's written in a simple but skilled manner, thus allowing it to be read any time of the day - it's a fast read too, since it manages to capture me and not let me go, something that very few books can do (to me!). So, here's another Gaarder classic!
Rating:
Summary: wonderful
Review: You can't miss this book!
This story is about a boy named Hans Thomas who left with his father to Athens looking for his mother that eight years before had left home trying to find herself. In his way to Greece a midget gave him a magnifying glass and then the baker of a town named Dorf gave him a very tiny book inside a bun. This book has the story of his family curse and make him realized what's his destiny and solve the mystery of why his mother run away to Athens. With this story the author wants to show the readers how wonderful and amazing life is. Just the fact of being alive is powerful and impressive. The human beings had being able to create an incredible world full of technologies that make life more comfortable and easy, but they haven't being able to realize neither how complex and organized nature and life are, nor the answer for the most basic questions like who are we? Where do we come from? How did we just appear on earth? Is there more live outside this planet?
There are just a few that maybe don't have the answers for these questions, but these questions are in their minds all the time, they are awake, they open their eyes and astonished they admire even the most little and insignificant thing. And those few are the jokers of the packs, "the ones who see too much and too deep".
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Summary: Solitaire Mystery, yes, yes, yes!!!
Review: The Solitaire Mystery by Jostein Gaarder is easily one of the greatest books that America has ever overlooked, though it's obscurity shouldn't make its value questionable. This tale is extremely complex, but an overall beautifully interwoven story. Not only do you become immersed in it by page one, but it's extremely psychological,philosophical-- a book that I like to call "symbolic fantasy", just like Michael Ende's books, especially the Neverending Story. You will discover so much profundity in this book while you enjoy it although you probably won't catch half of it until you read it again! A must read! Along with it I'd recommend the Neverending Story, other Jostein Gaarder books, The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupery, Alice in Wonderland, the Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster, anything.
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Summary: A book that will tke your imagination for a journey
Review: The Solitaire Mystery is more than a book. In the words of Mr. Coreander, a character in The Neverending Story by Michael Ende, "There are many doors to Fantastica, my boy. There are other such magic books. A lot of people read them without noticing. It all depends who gets his hands on such books." I believe that Gaarder truly gives readers a new doorway into 'Fantastica', by analogy. He demonstrates how literature can be an art only the imagination can truly understand. After the first time I read this book I was became so immersed into the story, I picked it up again and began reading it again. This is definitely a book to get your hands on. If you desire to read a book that shows the wonders of life, the mystery of adventures, a window into your innermost being, this is the book. I have read Gaarder's Sophie's World and loved it as well. These two books are significantly different and both contain a genuine 'must read' story. The imagination, spirit, soul, and what can be called the 'innermost being' takes on many forms, and they all gathers strength to take flight from different books in a variety of ways. Read and find out what will happen to you.
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Summary: This philosophical book really makes one think.
Review: I found The Solitaire Mystery to have very vivid characters and a good plot. I think that it is much more captivating than Sophie's World, which I also read. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to think. It raises many questions in one's mind, but answers few. This book interwines past and present, fate and chance, a card game and 'real' life. Although taking place in the land of the philosophers, the main character in this book, Hans, has modern day family problems. This book starts when Hans and his father go off to find Hans' mother who went off to 'find herself'. As they drive to find Hans' mother, they are followed by a strange midget who Hans suspects to be a living card: a joker. A baker in a small village gives Hans a book: a book about living cards...Is it true? One thing Hans does realize is that throughout time there will always be a 'joker'. I think that although this book raises questions about who we are and what our purpose is, it gives one hope; it tells one that although one comes from dust and eventually returns to dust, one's ideas are alive always
Rating:
Summary: A wonderful journey into the search of self-knowledge
Review: Jostein Gaarder simply has done a wonderful work in this book. Written two year before Sophie's World, The Solitaire Mystery also deals with Philosophy inserted in a fictional story. The entangled plot about the young Hans Thomas and his little book about deck of cards and the solitairy game is one the achievements of this narrative. Other magnificent point about it is the way the author deals with the reality of the characters and inserts it in the fantasy of the little book's plot. This is one of the best books that I have ever read. I simply couldn't stop reading it until the end. With its magical and fairy-tale elements mixed with the deepest questions about the meaning of life and the search of self-knowledge, the book catches the reader's attention. The end is touching ! After my pleasant expercience reading Sophie's World, I was sure that I would have a nice time reading The Solitaire Mystery, but I never expected to be so moved with it. You MUST read this book !
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Summary: Post-modern fairytale
Review: The Solitaire Mystery follows a young boy, Hans Thomas, and his father on their way to find their runaway mother. Along the way, they encounter various people, each connected by a strange world long ago, leading ultimately to the unraveling of the mysterious pasts of Hans and his family. The Solitaire Mystery explores the strange world of coincidences and determinism. It dabbles in the philosophy of consciousness, reminding one of Descartes's elegant statement, "Cogito ergo sum," except declared this time by a pack of living playing cards. While definitely surreal, Gaarder touches questions intrinsic in every culture in the world. The only problem I had with this book was its story-within-story format. This made it somewhat difficult to follow, as it reached the point when Hans was reading a book about someone telling someone else a story told to him by another person. However, despite the heady material The Solitaire Mystery utilizes, it still reads as light and whimsical. This is a fairytale a la Alice-in-Wonderland, but at the same time, deep and profound.
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Summary: This book really changed my life.
Review: I actually did not buy this book here at amazon.com , but I checked it out of my library. I was looking for a book randomly, and the fish on the cover caught my eye, so i picked it up, and checked it out. Oh my god. This book has changed my life forever. The book made me think so much about the world around me, and to really question life itself. How ignorant we are to walk around in our little lives, completely ignoring the greatness of everything around us, like how the sky stays up there, and how we stay planted on the ground, and how rain falls. After crying a little, and laughing a little, I finished the book with great satisfaction, and whole new persepective on life. If everyone in the world read this book, the world would be a grander place, in which we don't worry about petty differences, but instead wonder. Five stars, and nothing less.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful, Brilliant, Beautiful
Review: I absolutely love this book and have read it numerous times!
I read Sophie's World by the same author and really liked it so I decided to try this one and bought it at my local bookstore (I was 15 at the time) and I loved it then I still love it now (I'm 18) and would reccomend it to people of any age. Kids will love it for it's fantastical story and adults for the story but also the insight, poetry, and philsophy. It's an amazing tale of fate and fantasy and the details just lock together so cohesively to form the complex story.
It's a must read!
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Summary: A journey into questioning the world.
Review: Gaarder's story leads to a fantastic journey, in which the questioning of our own conditions of existence is the key to gain a broader perspective of it. When you read "Maya" following this one, there is an even great pleasure in reading these books.
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