INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! 2018 Odyssey Honor 2018 ALSC Notable Children’s Recording The Washington Post Best Audiobook of 2017 Slate Best Audiobook of 2017 Booklist Editor’s Choice Audio for Youth AudioFile Best YA Audiobooks of 2017 "Too few things in our world are worth a seventeen year wait: The Book of Dust is one of them." —The Washington Post Philip Pullman returns to the parallel world of his groundbreaking novel The Golden Compass to expand on the story of Lyra, "one of fantasy's most indelible characters." (The New York Times Magazine) Malcolm Polstead is the kind of boy who notices everything but is not much noticed himself. And so perhaps it was inevitable that he would become a spy.... Malcolm's parents run an inn called the Trout, on the banks of the river Thames, and all of Oxford passes through its doors. Malcolm and his daemon, Asta, routinely overhear news and gossip, and the occasional scandal, but during a winter of unceasing rain, Malcolm catches wind of something new: intrigue. He finds a secret message inquiring about a dangerous substance called Dust—and the spy it was intended for finds him. When she asks Malcolm to keep his eyes open, he sees suspicious characters everywhere: the explorer Lord Asriel, clearly on the run; enforcement agents from the Magisterium; a gyptian named Coram with warnings just for Malcolm; and a beautiful woman with an evil monkey for a daemon. All are asking about the same thing: a girl—just a baby—named Lyra. Lyra is the kind of person who draws people in like magnets. And Malcolm will brave any danger, and make shocking sacrifices, to bring her safely through the storm. "The book is full of wonder. . . . Truly thrilling." —The New York Times "People will love the first volume of Philip Pullman's new trilogy with the same helpless vehemence that stole over them when The Golden Compass came out." —Slate Note: This audiobook was recorded from the U.K. edition.
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“There’s something pleasingly old-fashioned about Michael Sheen’s narration…Sheen fully inhabits the text, and he’s utterly believable as eleven-year-old Malcolm Polstead…Sheen ramps up the tense urgency during frightening action sequences, making palpable all of the danger and terror, and his rendition of the eerie, alarming laugh of a hyena daemon is sure to unnerve listeners…Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.”
— AudioFile
“Actor Michael Sheen brings the rich timbre of his Welsh voice to Pullman’s The Book of Dust…Sheen’s voice truly contains multitudes, capturing the nature of each character with brio and passing from speaker to speaker with preternatural limberness. This is an audiobook for everyone over the age of eight.”
— Washington Post (audio review)“Blending a haunting and literary story with the deep, rhythmic voice of Michael Sheen, this audiobook is a mesmerizing and vivid tale.”
— Listening Library“The book is full of wonder…Truly thrilling.”
— New York Times“High-octane adventure accompanies ingenious plotting.”
— Times (London)“Too few things in our world are worth a seventeen year wait: The Book of Dust is one of them.”
— Washington Post“Reading this novel is like standing in a room in which suddenly all of the windows have blown open at once.”
— SlatePhilip Pullman is the Whitbread Award–winning author of the bestselling His Dark Materials series—The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass—as well as the Sally Lockhart trio of Victorian mysteries and other books for young readers. Among his other awards, he has won the prestigious Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award in honor of the body of his work.
Michael Sheen, an Earphones Award-winning narrator, has been seen widely on stage and screen. His major theatrical roles include Henry V, Peer Gynt, Jimmy Porter in Look Back in Anger as well as appearances in Pinter’s Moonlight and The Homecoming. Among his film work is Wilde, Mary Reilly, and Othello. Since leaving RADA, he has recorded numerous audiobooks, including Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment and The Idiot, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Great Poems of the Romantic Age, and Oedipus the King. He has also directed and read the part of Romeo in Romeo and Juliet for Naxos AudioBooks.