About This Site
What this is
The Kierkegaard Bookshelf (book.themodel.be) is a book guide for people who have been defeated by philosophy books before. This English edition selects five titles currently available on amazon.com and presents them in a reading order that won't defeat you — from a short introduction and a readable biography to Fear and Trembling, The Sickness unto Death and Either/Or. A Japanese edition is also maintained, alongside sister shops such as The Socrates Bookshelf and The Nietzsche Bookshelf.
The editorial room runs a family of philosopher bookshelves and a section-by-section reading archive of the primary texts (in Japanese) — for example Heidegger's Being and Time, introduction. Every review and reading-order recommendation on this site rests on that first-hand reading and on explicit bibliographic checking.
Why this edition differs from the Japanese one
Our Japanese edition builds its shelf around a single primary work, The Sickness unto Death, comparing two rival Japanese translations of it. English readers are in a different position: there is an abundance of established English translations, chiefly the Penguin Classics editions by Alastair Hannay and the Princeton editions by Howard and Edna Hong. So this edition presents five distinct works instead — a short introduction, a modern biography, and three primary texts — chosen to build a genuine reading ladder rather than to compare translations of one book.
The honesty note that shapes this site
Kierkegaard wrote many of his most important works under pseudonyms — Johannes de Silentio in Fear and Trembling, Anti-Climacus in The Sickness unto Death, "A" and Judge Wilhelm in Either/Or. These are not mere pen-names but authored characters holding positions he stages rather than simply asserts as his own. We do not paper over that. Where a primary text speaks through a pseudonym, the review says so, and treats the indirection as part of the subject, not an obstacle to hide.
How books are chosen and rated
- Judgements about the works themselves rest on the editorial room's first-hand reading. Star ratings are our own; no Amazon customer reviews are reproduced.
- Where a book is a short introduction or a biography rather than a primary text, the review says exactly what it is and what role it can honestly play. A guide is scaffolding, not the building — and we say so.
- All descriptions are written by us; no publisher copy is reproduced.
- Quotations are either standard, widely known renderings or our own editorial glosses, set off in blockquotes with their source given — not reproductions of the translations under review.
- Cover images are jacket-style images of our own design and differ from the actual covers.
- Prices and availability change, so we do not print them; always check the Amazon product page.
Amazon link disclosure
As an Amazon Associate, this site (The Kierkegaard Bookshelf) may earn from qualifying purchases.
Book links on this edition go to product pages on Amazon (amazon.com). If a purchase is made through them, this site may receive a commission at no additional cost to you. Commissions never influence the ratings — recommending books you will actually finish, rather than books that merely sell, is in the end what serves readers best.
Privacy policy
This is a static site; no personal information is collected server-side. The browser's localStorage is used solely to count link clicks (to improve the ranking's accuracy); that data stays in your browser and is never transmitted. Once you follow a link to Amazon, Amazon.com's privacy policy applies.
Contact
For corrections and inquiries, please use the contact address on our sister site soqdoq.com.