Sign-In
Cart
The Last Sophist
Hardcover
General FictionLiterary Fiction
Publisher Price: $40.00
Publisher: Signed, Sealed, & Delivered
Published: Sep 1 2026
Pages: 284
Weight: 1.05
Height: 0.75 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English
Sometimes the people who shape our lives the most are the ones we understand the least.
In 1977, a young man attends a lecture by Theodore Vale, America's most celebrated public intellectual and leaves believing he has encountered someone who will change his life.
He is right, though not in the way he expects.
Brilliant, charismatic, and seemingly capable of seeing into the lives of everyone around him, Vale draws the young man into an intoxicating world of private conversations, powerful patrons, extravagant gatherings, and ideas that appear capable of explaining everything. To be noticed by Vale is flattering. To be chosen by him seems like the beginning of an extraordinary future.
But Vale's attention comes with a price.
Soon the young man finds himself part of an intimate circle that includes Lydia Moreau, the woman he loves, and Julian Price, the friend whose ambitions may rival Vale's own. As friendships deepen and loyalties change, admiration gives way to rivalry, desire becomes entangled with ambition, and secrets begin to gather beneath the surface. Each of them believes that the others can be understood. Each is mistaken.
Decades later, the narrator returns to that transformative year, trying to discover what really happened among them. Who was using whom? How much did Lydia know? What did Julian truly want? And did Theodore Vale believe any of the ideas that made him famous?
Yet memory is not a disinterested witness. The more carefully the narrator reconstructs the past, the less certain he becomes that the truth has survived his many years of remembering it.
Elegant, intimate, and quietly suspenseful, The Last Sophist is a novel about charisma and desire, mentorship and betrayal, and the unsettling mystery of how another person can change your life without ever allowing you to know them.
Also from
Buller, Jeffrey L.
The ATLAS Guide to Promoting Collegiality in Higher Education
Cipriano, Robert E.
Buller, Jeffrey L.
Paperback
Authentic Academic Leadership: A Values-Based Approach to College Administration
Buller, Jeffrey L.
Hardcover
Managing Time and Stress: A Guide for Academic Leaders to Accomplish What Matters
Buller, Jeffrey L.
Hardcover
Hire the Right Faculty Member Every Time: Best Practices in Recruiting, Selecting, and Onboarding College Professors
Buller, Jeffrey L.
Hardcover
The ATLAS Guide to Emotional Intelligence in Higher Education
Buller, Jeffrey L.
Cipriano, Robert E.
Paperback
The ATLAS Guide to Shared Governance in Higher Education
Buller, Jeffrey L.
Cipriano, Robert E.
Paperback
The ATLAS Guide to Effective Meetings in Higher Education
Cipriano, Robert E.
Buller, Jeffrey L.
Paperback
The ATLAS Guide to Career Development in Higher Education
Buller, Jeffrey L.
Cipriano, Robert E.
Paperback
The ATLAS Guide to Conflict Management in Higher Education
Buller, Jeffrey L.
Cipriano, Robert E.
Paperback
The ATLAS Guide to Coaching and Mentoring in Higher Education
Cipriano, Robert E.
Buller, Jeffrey L.
Paperback
The ATLAS Guide to Effective Communication in Higher Education
Cipriano, Robert E.
Buller, Jeffrey L.
Paperback
The ATLAS Guide to Leadership for Introverts in Higher Education
Cipriano, Robert E.
Buller, Jeffrey L.
Paperback
Managing Time and Stress: A Guide for Academic Leaders to Accomplish What Matters
Buller, Jeffrey L.
Paperback
Confronting Today's Issues: Opportunities and Challenges for School Administrators
Buller, Jeffrey L.
Prosser, Chad
Spirou, Denise
Hardcover
Hire the Right Faculty Member Every Time: Best Practices in Recruiting, Selecting, and Onboarding College Professors
Buller, Jeffrey L.
Paperback
Authentic Academic Leadership: A Values-Based Approach to College Administration
Buller, Jeffrey L.
Paperback
Going for the Gold: How to Become a World-Class Academic Fundraiser
Reeves, Dianne M.
Buller, Jeffrey L.
Paperback
World-Class Fundraising Isn't a Solo Sport: The Team Approach to Academic Fundraising
Buller, Jeffrey L.
Reeves, Dianne M.
Paperback
Confronting Today's Issues: Opportunities and Challenges for School Administrators
Buller, Jeffrey L.
Prosser, Chad
Spirou, Denise
Paperback
Evaluating Boards and Administrators: Promoting Greater Accountability in Higher Education
Buller, Jeffrey L.
Paperback
Free Speech and Campus Civility: Promoting Challenging but Constructive Dialog in Higher Education
Cipriano, Robert E.
Buller, Jeffrey L.
Hardcover
Evaluating Boards and Administrators: Promoting Greater Accountability in Higher Education
Buller, Jeffrey L.
Hardcover
Free Speech and Campus Civility: Promoting Challenging but Constructive Dialog in Higher Education
Buller, Jeffrey L.
Cipriano, Robert E.
Paperback
The ATLAS Guide to Work/Life Balance in Higher Education
Cipriano, Robert E.
Buller, Jeffrey L.
Paperback
Going for the Gold: How to Become a World-Class Academic Fundraiser
Buller, Jeffrey L.
Reeves, Dianne M.
Hardcover
World-Class Fundraising Isn't a Solo Sport: The Team Approach to Academic Fundraising
Buller, Jeffrey L.
Reeves, Dianne M.
Hardcover
Also in
Literary Fiction
Elizabeth Spencer: Novels & Stories (Loa #344): The Voice at the Back Door / The Light in the Piazza / Knights and Dragons / Stories
Spencer, Elizabeth
Hardcover
James Fenimore Cooper: The Leatherstocking Tales Vol. 1 (Loa #26): The Pioneers / The Last of the Mohicans / The Prairie
Cooper, James Fenimore
Hardcover
The Underworld U.S.A. Trilogy, Volume I: American Tabloid, the Cold Six Thousand; Introduction by Thomas Mallon
Ellroy, James
Hardcover
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Other Stories (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)
Stevenson, Robert Louis
Paperback
Philip Roth: Novels 1973-1977 (Loa #165): The Great American Novel / My Life as a Man / The Professor of Desire
Roth, Philip
Hardcover
The Patrick Melrose Novels: Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, and Mother's Milk
St Aubyn, Edward
Paperback