Maya

As a Fan of Gaarder I was sort of expecting Maya to be for evolutionary theory what Sophie's World was for philosophy. I was pleasently surprised to fine that this was not the case. As always Gaarder weaves a fairly difficult tale and I'll admit that I could only take this book in short quantities but felt well rewarded by the end. I recommend this book to anyone whoever wondered about the existance of a cosmic plan. The strands of the story are allows to tie up in a very realistic way (relatively speaking)which surprised me. If you like Gaarder you might feel this is a slight break from his previous style. If you haven't read any of his work before, this is probably the best book to ease into it

Not one one the best of Jostein Gaarders books, hard to get into and difficult to follow the thread of thought. Some good ideas but not the best read I have to say.

I choose a five because it fulfills my expectations of a good read . . . an affecting, imaginative story, sympathetic characters, uplifting rather than negative overall, and plenty of interesting, well-researched and serious thought.

After reading The Solitaire Mystery by Jostein Gaarder and deciding it was probably my favourite book of all time, I did not believe that Gaarder could produce another story which came close, but I was wrong.Maya is now hot competition for my number 1 book spot. Once more, Gaarder has masterfully combined intriguing fact with an unpredictable and exciting story line. The plot is so thick that you can easily forget which world is reality, and, unlike so many books, the fact does not seem to be there just for the sake of it. Instead of existing alone, it helps to further the story.A must for all readers, no matter their interests.

Maybe I expected this to be another Sophie's World, but it's very different. I found that it dragged a bit; while the ideas seemed interesting, there were sections where I felt like I just couldn't be bothered to read on.The ending is good, and the book itself is generally enjoyable enough (with, as I said, some less inspiring bits).I admit that the area of biology and evolution and so on isn't as interesting to me as philosophy, so that might account for the book seeming dull in comparison with Sophie's World. Additionally, I found parts of the plot very similar to The Solitaire Mystery, but it just didn't engage me as much.Overall, I found that I struggled to get through this book.

Absolutely unreadable tosh. After the second conversation with a lizard I actually lost the will to live. Life’s too short... don’t waste any of it picking up this book.

1.0 out of 5 stars What a struggle, February 14, 2005By MaryAnne "dubai-reader" (Dubai United Arab Emirates) - See all my reviewsThis book was recommended by our book group but in spite of my best intentions I think I'm going to do the unforgiveable and abandon it.It's not as if the origins of life on earth don't interest me, I did my degree in Plannt Science.BUT I have got as far as p130, a fair test I think, and I'm finding it pretentious and tedious. Who has 20 page conversations with a geko?? What is all this nonsense with elves and the joker?? Unfortunately I can't be bothered to find out.In the words of a fellow book clubber who got to p50, "Life is too short".