Publisher’s Summary

Publisher’s Summary

Publisher Summary

Lyra and Will, the two ordinary children whose extraordinary adventures begin in The Golden Compass and The Subtle Knife, are in unspeakable danger. With help from Iorek Byrnison the armored bear and two tiny Gallivespian spies, they must journey to a dank and gray-lit world where no living soul has ever gone.
All the while, Dr. Mary Malone builds a magnificent amber spyglass. An assassin hunts her down. And Lord Asriel, with troops of shining angels, fights his mighty rebellion, a battle of strange allies and shocking sacrifice.

As war rages and dust drains from the sky, the fate of the living, and the dead, finally comes to depend on two children and the simple truth of one simple story. The Amber Spyglass reveals that story, bringing Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials to an astonishing conclusion.

Publisher’s Summary

In this stunning sequel to The Golden Compass, the intrepid Lyra finds herself in a shimmering, haunted otherworld, Cittagazze, where soul-eating Specters stalk the streets and wingbeats of distant angels sound against the sky. But she is not without allies: 12-year-old Will Parry, fleeing for his life after taking another’s, has also stumbled into this strange new realm.

On a perilous journey from world to world, Lyra and Will uncover a deadly secret: an object of extraordinary and devastating power. And with every step, they move closer to an even greater threat, and the shattering truth of their own destiny.

Publisher’s Summary:

When Lyra and her daemon Pantalaimon decide to spy on a presentation her uncle, the commanding Lord Asriel, is making to the elders of Jordan College they have no idea that they will become witnesses to an attempted murder, and even less that they are taking the first steps in a journey that will lead them into danger and adventure unlike anything Lyra’s unfettered imagination has conjured up.

Though she has been raised at the college in an atmosphere of benign neglect that has allowed her to become a half-wild child of the streets, Lyra soon finds herself apprenticed to the elegant Mrs. Coulter, and in possession of a strange device called the alethiometer, a “golden compass” that reads not true worth, but truth itself.

But truth is a precious commodity, and before long Lyra and Pan are running for their lives, the object of an obsessive hunt by mysterious forces who have been stealing children for dark purposes that no one understands. Lyra will need all her street-learned wiles if she and Pan are to survive.

If you haven’t read Harry Potter and you’re over the age of 18, then this first book may be a bit difficult to get through. After all, it is about a 10-year-olds. However, it is worth dealing with the young adult story, which goes by quick enough, to get into the main story of Harry Potter and introduces you to the wizarding world. The beauty of this series is that each book grows more mature in terms of plot and depth, just as the characters grow.

Power-listen through Book 1 (the Fry version, please) and consider it your ticket to ride the Hogwarts Express into the best fantasy universe on the planet.

¹ I downloaded the Fry version years ago—around 2007—and recently purchased the Dale version in 2018. Jim Dale’s reading was so awful, I couldn’t tell the difference between Dumbledore and Hermione. Yes, it was so bad, a 10-year-old girl and a 109-year-old man sounded nearly identical. And yes Albus Dumbledore is 109 in book one.