Northern Lights

Name: Northern Lights
Author: Philip Pullman
ISBN: 140719870X

by Philip Pullman

In a landmark epic of fantasy and storytelling, Philip Pullman invites readers into a world as convincing and thoroughly realized as Narnia, Earthsea, or Redwall. Here lives an orphaned ward named Lyra Belacqua, whose carefree life among the scholars at Oxford's Jordan College is shattered by the arrival of two powerful visitors. First, her fearsome uncle, Lord Asriel, appears with evidence of mystery and danger in the far North, including photographs of a mysterious celestial phenomenon called Dust and the dim outline of a city suspended in the Aurora Borealis that he suspects is part of an alternate universe. He leaves Lyra in the care of Mrs. Coulter, an enigmatic scholar and explorer who offers to give Lyra the attention her uncle has long refused her.…

Recommended by

Sylvia Bishop

"Yes, and that’s where this book begins. It gives a fantastic realism punch. There’s a thrill, coming straight into this one from the first book: we’ve just left Lyra and daemons and talking armoured bears, and suddenly we’re in residential suburbia in Oxford, with a son worrying about his mother and her mental health problems and the very earthly authorities who might interfere. And you think, how is this going to relate? Am I really going to find out that this ordinary, fairly bleak reality, a piece of my reality, belongs in the same universe as Lyra? And that’s the beauty of portal fantasy – linking our world to the magic. I think it speaks to the way that sometimes there’s suddenly a new idea, or a new person, or a new decision, or a moment of transcendence – and, briefly or permanently, our ordinary world opens out."

The Best Portal Fantasy Books · fivebooks.com