This is a marvelous collection of Grimm fairy tales, with a wonderful introduction by Philip Pullman. Each tale is followed by a brief note, but the main focus of this collection is the stories themselves. It's fascinating to see the "original" versions of fairy tales that are familiar from many ...
This was good, but I didn't like it as much as I wanted to. I thought that Christ was a fairly one-dimensional character. The idea of using organized religion as a form of control was presented in much the same as many others have done so. The plot was more derivative than I had hoped it would be...
Despite the title, this is really not a book which will have people lighting up bonfires and raising pitchforks in a frenzied babble. In fact, it is a well-constructed retelling of the story of Jesus of Nazareth, touching upon weighty themes such as how institutional religion is not always faith,...
The Grimm's fairy tales were my constant companions growing up. I owned a foxed copy of the complete unabridged fairy tales and they accompanied me on every road trip, plane ride, and family camping vacation throughout my adolescent years. Donkeyskin and Rose Red were two of my favorite tales (I ...
I literally grew up with fairy tales old and new, from the Grimm Brothers themselves to Enid Blyton and Beatrix Potter. I haven't read Grimm's Tales for many years now, and this book really brought me back to when I'd happily sit reading them over and over. This is an updated version of the tales...
Oooooof.Too much. Way too much.Pullman's series concludes like it started. Good but nothing great. And tiring. Very. The Amber Spyglass weighs as much as the other two books put together....and then some. Pullman pulls in still MORE main characters and still MORE beings and still MORE complic...
I didn't know about Philip Pullman and 'His Dark Materials' before the trailers for 'The Golden Compass' aired - and I'm a bit sad about that. I would have loved to have read this when I was a teenager!Anyways, on to the review:The Golden CompasThe storyline in The Golden Compas is so well-crafte...
The Subtle Knife which is the second volume in His Dark Materials trilogy fails to live up to the first installment.In Nothern Lights (or The Golden Compass, as it was titled in the US) readers were treated to a rich alternative universe. It was clear that the Philip Pullman had an active imagina...
This is a largely ironic novel. I say ironic due to the way in which in aiming to parody another work of fiction, it falls victim to the same problems it accuses the other work of. By parody I mean the claim, verified in some sources by Philip Pullman, that due to the author's dislike of The Chro...
The Shadow in the North is set in Victorian England. The three central characters are; Jim, Frederick and Sally Lockhart. Sally, unusually for a woman of the times is working independently as a financial consultant. One of her clients asks her to trace some money, which was lost when the company ...
If I had to name a children's/teen's author of the past twenty years most likely to be remembered over the next few centuries, it would have to be J.K. Rowling - it's hard to ignore an author that rewrites an entire culture. If we're talking runners-up, though, it's Philip Pullman hands down. N...
finally, i finish the trilogy of sally lockhart! our precocious girl heroine is a woman now, with a daughter, a flourishing business, a happy household, and a whole new tangled mess of problems. for me, this was the book where sally became a whole person. she has actual inadequacies! shortcomings...
"This book contains a story and several other things."So opens this slim and quiet little volume of Lyra's Oxford, a book that truly contains a story and several other things, but maybe Other Things is how we should think of these latter objects for: "They might have come from anywhere. They migh...
Bakat - Keberanian - Nasib baik."Aku ingin menjadi pembuat kembang api," Lila berhasil berkata.Razvani tertawa keras sekali."Kau? Tidak mungkin! Dan apa yang kauinginkan dariku?""Sulfur Bangsawan," jawab Lila tersedak.Mendengar itu Razvani menepuk sisi tubuhnya sendiri dan tertawa semakin keras, ...
Coulter worried Farder Coram and John Faa more than they let Lyra know; but they weren’t to know that she was worried too. Lyra feared Mrs. Coulter and thought about her often. And whereas Lord Asriel was now “father,” Mrs. Coulter was never “mother.” The reason for that was Mrs. Coulter’s dæmon,...
How could she let him know? How dare she? As she stumbled away over the shingle she heard her breath rasping in her throat and before she could do anything about it she was torn by a burst of sobbing, and she flung herself to the ground and cried, with great gusts of tears shaking their way out o...
There was a tangle of narrow streets between there and the Royal Arctic Institute, which was the only place Lyra was sure of being able to find, and into that dark maze she hurried now. If only she knew London as well as she knew Oxford! Then she would have known which streets to avoid; or where ...
Intrepid balloonists and their daemons from across the Arctic, both professional traders and daring amateurs, gather together at the city of Reykjavik in Fireland to contest this perilous competition of amazing skill and death-defying hazard. By tradition the race starts in the perfect ballooning...