The first book on philosophy that both blew my hair back and made me realize philosophy is alot more than just academic was You Can Trust the Communists (to be Communists).
not to sound like an ass, but if you want to seriously deal with philosophy, don't waste your time with sophies world. or 'zen and the art of...' for that matter.
Why not?
Do you consider it misleading, or just too simplistic? If the former, fair enough (though I'd love to hear details; I quite enjoyed Sophie). If the latter: I'm a big fan of light overviews. You can always go deeper into the areas you find interesting, whereas it's easy to get lost if you dive straight into the in-depth stuff.
Granted it doesn't delve deep and is just a broad overview couched in a fun story, but do you know of better books that gives a chronological history of the development of philosophy?
Some things I find useful to understand how they developed, in what chronological order, philosophy especially. Much of philosophy is a response to preceding ideas, and it helps to understand it all if you start at the beginning and work your way forward to present day, rather than read disjointed segments of it out of context from how it developed.
I'm sure there's something better than Sophie's World for that, I just don't know what it is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophies_World
The first book on philosophy that both blew my hair back and made me realize philosophy is alot more than just academic was You Can Trust the Communists (to be Communists).
http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/schwarz-cover.htm...
My best friend in college was a Russian Jew whose family immigrated to US during the Cold War, and he kept that book on his coffee table.
It's the Yin to Howard Zinn's Yang - A People's History of the United States - which even though it's not philosophy is worth reading too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Peoples_History_of_the_United...