Skip to main content

Books I have previously loved: His Dark Materials

His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman

This series is one I hold dear as it is the first young adult series I ever picked up. I went through a stage in my mid teens of not knowing what to read. I was too old for Enid Blyton but too young for a lot of the adult books I'd tried and failed to be interested in. On my 17th birthday Hadley bought me a copy of Northern Lights. I was hooked by the time I finished the first page and finished it within a day or two. I love Lyra as a character and I love the bears.The whole story is pure fantasy but it is so easy to relate to (How badly do I want a daemon - even now). I promptly managed to track down a copy of the Subtle Knife and loved it as much. I like the fact that you meet a whole new host of characters in a whole new setting which eventually intermingles with the one you started in - Will is an awesome character.

Just as I was about to get round to read The Amber Spyglass Phillip Pullman was doing a book to coincide with the release of it in paperback. We went up to Norwich and heard him talk about the book which I remember as being really funny but we made the fatal mistake of buying books as he started signing and ended up at the very back of the queue to see him. Relying on public transport as we did back then we had to leave before we got to see him (although we got our stuff signed as a lovely lady who worked at the bookshop got it done for us to collect later on).

As luck would have it I was studying at UEA when Phillip Pullman visited Norwich again and he was scheduled to talk at UEA promoting his Dark materials spin off Lyra's Oxford. This time we got ourselves at the front of the queue and got a variety of our books signed.

I love that the series is so vastly different from anything else I've read and it has been a fair few years since I have read it and I need to reread them and review them sooner rather than later as they were awesome. I love the good characters and hate the bad ones. The books deals with a variety of themes which I had never seen addressed in the type of books I was reading when I first picked them up. Definitely one I'd recommend because all these years later after reading them I would still consider them one of the best series of books I have ever read.

Comments

Anonymous said…
I read this series about 3 years ago and ADORED them. Well, actually I listened to them on audio book, narrated by Philip himself. He is an awesome narrator.
I've read this series so many times. It is my favorite!
Unknown said…
You got to hear Phillip Pullman speak!?! I would so love that. I love this series. The writing is beautiful and the idea outstanding.
Aylee said…
Definitely one of my favourites! How cool that you got to see him speak!
I really adore this series as well. I heard Philip Pullman speak this past summer and it was really interesting! I went to see this theatre adaptation of this series which I loved and I even managed to get my dad to read the first book.. he stayed up all night and then took my copies of the second and third book home with him to America :)