Philip Pullman is the best-selling author of several books, most notably his trilogy of fantasy novels,
His Dark Materials.
The first book of
His Dark Materials has been turned into the film
The Golden Compass
and the first two books from his
Sally Lockhart series have been adapted for television.
Although I didn't see the movie yet I'd recommend reading the whole trilogy before.
Well, I did...
More about Philip Pullman
The author of the
His Dark Materials trilogy was a schoolteacher for 13 years, also writing plays,
some of which became children’s books, such as
Count Karlstein (1982),
The Firework-Maker’s Daughter (1995)
and the first of the Sally Lockhart novels,
The Ruby in the Smoke (1986).
Pullman’s trenchant views on the over-testing of children and the importance of “freedom for a true,
imaginative and humane engagement with literature” has aroused almost as much controversy
as his championing of anti-Christian themes in
His Dark Materials. Inspired by
Paradise Lost,
they posit a world very like our own where souls are visible as animal “daemons” and witches, angels and bears
rally to the side of a new Adam and Eve in a fight between free will and God. Powerful, passionate and superbly plotted,
they are modern classics, as appealing to adults as to children.
In 2008, The Times named Pullman in its list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".
The 50 greatest British writers since 1945
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/ ... 127837.ece