Tag Archives: Philip Pullman

The Top Ten Books [I had Time to Read] This Year

IMG_4709

Foreground: Baby. Background: Books.

I became a parent in the Spring of 2014. Which is a wonderful thing, but it means that I spent my severely reduced reading time with books like The Happiest Baby on the Block Guide to Great Sleep (useful, but a pretty excruciating read); Be Prepared: A Practical Handbook for New Dads (useful, and an enjoyable read); and The Berenstain Bears and the Spooky Old Tree (still a classic).

I did manage to pull off one half-assed review about a book I hadn’t finished reading, but for the most part my 2014 was spent dreaming of all the cool looking books I had no time to enjoy. Needless to say, this has left me woefully underqualified to make any kinds of judgments, even subjective ones, about the Best Books of the last 12 months.

And yet, I remain undeterred — what is the end of a year without a list of things? And while I may not have a top 10, I’m sure I can come up with something that fits our habit of doing odd and unorthodox year-end lists.

So here is my list of Top Ten Books [I had Time to Read] This Year. Continue reading

3 Comments

Filed under Hooray Fiction!

Book of Today: His Dark Materials Trilogy by Philip Pullman.

hisdarkmaterials

Today is the birthday 405th birthday of the poet John Milton, who wrote the line “His dark materials to create more worlds” in Book II of Paradise Lost, the great work from which Philip Pullman took his inspiration and his title in writing the His Dark Materials trilogy.

Reportedly, Pullman was attempting to write a version of Paradise Lost that would be accessible to teenagers. Whether he managed such a feat is debatable, but the results were good enough to be our Book of Today.

- Michael Moats

Leave a comment

Filed under Book of Today