Through the Looking Glass Book Reviews: His Dark Materials

Welcome!

Dear Book Lovers, Welcome! I am delighted that you have found The Through the Looking Glass blog. For over twenty years I reviewed children's literature titles for my online journal, which came out six times a year. Every book review written for that publication can be found on the Through the Looking Glass website (the link is below). I am now moving in a different direction, though the columns that I write are still book-centric. Instead of writing reviews, I'm offering you columns on topics that have been inspired by wonderful books that I have read. I tell you about the books in question, and describe how they have have impacted me. This may sound peculiar to some of you, but the books that I tend to choose are ones that resonate with me on some level. Therefore, when I read the last page and close the covers, I am not quite the same person that I was when first I started reading the book. The shift in my perspective might be miniscule, but it is still there. The books I am looking are both about adult and children's titles. Some of the children's titles will appeal to adults, while others will not. Some of the adult titles will appeal to younger readers, particularly those who are eager to expand their horizons.

Friday, September 5, 2008

Philip Pullman chooses his top 40 books

Waterstone Books, the British bookshop chain, invited Phillip Pullman of His Dark Materials fame to choose his top forty favorite books for their Writer's Table. Being able to choose forty titles gave Pullman a certain amount of flexibility though he does admit that he did have a hard time choosing. Naturally he chose a lot of adult fiction, non-fiction, and poetry, but he also chose some children's titles. In a Times article he had this to say about his children's book choices:

"I've said elsewhere that children's books belong in the general conversation about books and not in some separate little nursery. So I applied the same rule here as I did with the rest: leave out the obvious classics. Alice didn't make it, but a less well-known Arthur Ransome than Swallows and Amazons did, and so did a book that still makes me laugh after 50 years, Norman Lindsay's The Magic Pudding. Just outside my list, but pressing hard, is Philippa Pearce's wonderful Tom's Midnight Garden."

In addition to The Magic Pudding, and Arthur Ransome's We didn't mean to go to sea, Pullman has chosen The Castafiore Emerald (one of the Tintin books), Complete Fairy Tales by the Brothers Grimm, the Finn Family Moomintroll, Kim, and Lavender's Blue (a collection of nursery rhymes). You can see the complete list of books on the Waterstone's Writer's Table Page.

Though I have not yet read We didn't mean to go to sea. I have read (and reviewed) Swallows and Amazons. I love all the Tintin books and I must agree that The Castafiore Emerald is one of the best. I have yet to review the Tintin books for Through the Looking Glass Book Review but will do so soon. Tom's Midnight Garden is one of my favorite books of all time and I greatly enjoyed reviewing it.

You might like to read the Times article written by Pullman in which he explains "how I chose my top 40." It is very well written (of course) and enormously interesting.

Through the Looking Glass Book Review has a profile on Phillip Pullman as well as reviews of the His Dark Materials Trilogy and the Sally Lockhart Mysteries.