I’m taking a short break from Don Quixote, or, in the perfect world, I am still reading it, it is only on the back burner. After finishing the Harry Potter series I feel lonely. No more waiting in fervent anticipation for the next book, no more wondering whether we will get answers, just, no more. Friends have been recommending Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy for years. I purchased it a few months ago, and put the first book, The Golden Compass, on my summer reading list (a list I’m making some good progress on). I started it on Saturday and, having traveled halfway through the novel I’m very happy.
The plot is thick, the idea intriguing, and the pacing great. I also learned to my pleasant surprise that New Line Cinema has made this book into a movie starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig set for release in December 2007 (yet another movie I am looking forward to).
I remember when The Golden Compass was first published in 1995 because I was reading a lot of fantasy at the time and it was bookmarked in B. Dalton Bookseller’s Fantasy News newsletter. I liked the cover (at the time a girl riding a polar bear). At the time it seemed the book was being marketed towards the adult fantasy reader, but now it is firmly entrenched in the young readers category (or it is at Powell’s anyway). Whatever the categorization of the book is, it is a fabulous read and even though I am only halfway through the novel, I highly recommend it to any other post-Potterites out there.