The #1 New York Times Bestseller!
Return to the world of His Dark Materials in the second volume of Philip Pullman’s new bestselling masterwork The Book of Dust. The windows between the many worlds have been sealed and the momentous adventures of Lyra Silvertongue’s youth are long behind her—or so she thought. Lyra is now a twenty-year-old undergraduate at St. Sophia’s College and intrigue is swirling around her once more. Her daemon Pantalaimon is witness to a brutal murder, and the dying man entrusts them with secrets that carry echoes from their past.
The more Lyra is drawn into these mysteries, the less she is sure of. Even the events of her own past come into question when she learns of Malcolm Polstead’s role in bringing her to Jordan College.
Now Lyra and Malcolm will travel far beyond the confines of Oxford, across Europe and into the Levant, searching for a city haunted by daemons, and a desert said to hold the truth of Dust. The dangers they face will challenge everything they thought they knew about the world, and about themselves.
Praise for The Book of Dust
“It’s a stunning achievement, this universe Pullman has created and continues to build on.” —The New York Times “Pullman’s writing is simple, unpretentious, beautiful, true. The conclusion to The Book of Dust can’t come soon enough.”—The Washington Post
On sale: October 3, 2019
Age: 14 and up
Grade: Grade 9 & Up
Page count: 656 Pages
ISBN: 9780553510669
Reading level: Lexile: HL830L
PHILIP PULLMAN is one of the most acclaimed writers working today. He is best known for the His Dark Materials trilogy, which has been named one of the top 100 books of all time by
Newsweek and one of the all-time greatest novels by
Entertainment Weekly. Pullman was knighted for his services to literature in the 2019 New Year Honours.
The Book of Dust, Pullman’s eagerly anticipated return to the world of His Dark Materials, will also be a book in three parts. It began with
La Belle Sauvage and continues with
The Secret Commonwealth.
Philip Pullman is the author of many other beloved novels. For younger readers:
I Was a Rat!, Count Karlstein, Two Crafty Criminals!, Spring-Heeled Jack, and
The Scarecrow and His Servant. For older readers: the Sally Lockhart quartet (
The Ruby in the Smoke, The Shadow in the North, The Tiger in the Well, and
The Tin Princess),
The White Mercedes, and
The Broken Bridge. He has written a magnificent collection,
Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm, and his essays and lectures on writing and storytelling have been gathered in a volume called
Dæmon Voices: On Stories and Storytelling.
Philip Pullman lives in Oxford, England.
“
The Secret Commonwealth is a
majestic return to Lyra’s next chapter with all the
magic, folklore, and fantasy only Philip Pullman can provide.” –
Hypable “A big novel full of
big ideas, big characters and big sorrows. . .
This book feels like a response to the darkness of our time.”—NPR
“
Pullman’s best novel so far. A work of extraordinary depth and humanity.” —
The Observer
“As always, Pullman’s writing is
simple, unpretentious, beautiful, true. . . . the conclusion to the Book of Dust can’t come soon enough.” —
The Washington Post “The novel gallops forward,
full of danger, delight and surprise. Pullman is a staggeringly gifted storyteller.” —
New Statesman“Engrossing.”—
Financial Times “Exhilarating.”—
Kirkus Reviews “Enthralling.”—
Readings “Mr. Pullman’s writing is
clear, clean and forceful, never striving for effect and all the more effective because of it. He’s also a man of ideas, which gives great savor to his work.” –
The Wall Street Journal “
Coming back to [Lyra] after all these years is such a profound pleasure that I can do nothing but sit back and watch her charge forward into the night, ready as she always was to remake the world in her own image.”—
Vox
“Profound and provocative.” —
Bulletin“
The Secret Commonwealth reasserts Pullman’s affection for the wondrous and those pieces of reality which can be seen only by those willing to see.”—
Newsweek“These books, and the intellectual debate they produce,
make Lyra’s world feel more lived-in than ever before.” —
Entertainment Weekly
“Not only is it worthy second installment in The Book of Dust trilogy, it continues to prove this sequence will be
every bit as excellent as His Dark Materials.”
—Seattle Post-Intelligencer
