Reading Bryan Magee's The Story Of Philosophy, it is a good introduction for those who know little of the field. However by comparison to Sophie's World Magee devotes too much space to matters irrelavant to the Philosophy in question, such as the Philosopher's other intellectual intrests (mathematics, music, encyclopedias) and he can occasionally fall into a reccesion of "this Philosopher was also blessed with some of the best writing abilites ever", however for those adverse to what on the surface appears to be child orientated story telling this is a better starting point.