His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass, the Subtle Knife, the Amber Spyglass; Introduction by Lucy Hughes-Hallett

Came super clean and sealed. No dents or anything thank you

I gifted the book set as a birthday gift to my 13 yr old daughter & she absolutely loved it! It’s a great adventure story & she really looks forward to read more titles by Philip Pullman! The book set arrived on time, in a neat book-set.

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I have to admit that I was horribly late in getting around to reading Philip Pullman's 'His Dark Materials' trilogy and it wasn't until after watching a TV program where he was speaking about his books and influences that I realised that I had to finally get around to reading them. Rather handily, I received Amazon vouchers for my birthday so I had a rummage around for a good hardback set of the three books and found this one, which looked to be exactly what I was looking for.The book itself is magnificent - beautiful to look at, pleasingly heavy and incredibly high quality. It's printed on very thin paper in small-than-usual text too, so for those of you that don't have the best eyesight, this may present a problem - but for anyone else this is a definite must-purchase if you're a fan of well-written fantasy.Thinking that these were going to be very much in a similar vein to the likes of J.K Rowling's 'Harry Potter' books, I started off reading the first book, expecting similar themes and tropes, but I don't think I could have been any more wrong. In fact, right off the bat it's clear that this is a much darker, more violent and sinister world than anything in the Potterverse - and it really surprises me that these are considered to be 'kids' books as some of the events in them are pretty gruesome and surprisingly mature.I'm not going to delve into the plot, but suffice to say that Philip Pullman's imagination is amazing and the world he's created in these books is fully realised and rich with originality and intrigue, and it's definitely a series of books that will keep you briskly page-turning right until the end.Love it!UPDATE: I sort of wrote this review before I had finished reading the book all the way through, so it is with a heavy heart that I say that although I loved the first book and enjoyed the second one, the third one is not of the same quality. It definitely has its moments, but any positive thoughts I had about the series evaporated in a puff of smoke after experiencing the saccharine, nauseating conclusion, which nearly had me blowing chunks on this book's pages.

I read these books a long time ago, and thoroughly enjoyed them. When i saw the released as i set, i thought they'd be perfect for my daughter (10 yrs old) to read.I won't go into the story too much, because if you are interested, just read it - its fabulous. I don;t want to spoil it for you :) But in short, it's about a girl called Lyra, and her unusual world. If you or your children liked reading books like Harry Potter, and Narnia books, then this is along those lines, but just slightly older.One huge word of warning though - if you give this to anyone, or read it for yourself, DO NOT READ THE FOREWORD INTRODUCTION!!!! It gives away so much of the story in the first few pages, its crazy. I couldn't beleive it when my daughter told me what was in it.....such a shame, as it has spoiled several of the surprise events in the books.The books themselves get a solid 5 stars - they are a great read, and a fantastic page turner, each chapter enticing you to read on ....and on.....and on! The book itself feels solid in hardback, and a joy to hold and flick through.Highly recommended to children of capable reading abilities, aged perhaps 10 years and older, and for any adults who like to dip into magical worlds every now and again :)

This review is for the Scholastic paperback edition of Philip Pullman's three novels: "Northern Lights', 'The Subtle Knife' and 'The Amber Spyglass' combined together to form 'His Dark Materials Trilogy', a 1360 page bind-up edition and a very attractively presented one at that. I have little to add to the proliferation of five star reviews already on Amazon commenting on the wonderful story-telling abilities of Mr Pullman, so I shall restrict myself to commenting on this particular Scholastic edition and report that this good quality paperback is the size of a hardback book, the pages are pleasantly thick and the print is of a decent size - which is important when you are reading a book comprising of almost 1400 pages - or, in my case, rereading the novels - as compiled editions are often printed on thin paper with very small print. Five stars for the quality of this combined edition and five stars plus for the marvellous stories contained within it.5 Stars.

Northern Lights:I wish I had read this a lot earlier as I imagine I would have enjoyed it even more. This is a very popular book but I was in my teens when it came out so that's why I probably missed it. It tells the story of Lyra and her quest to rescue her friend Roger when he is kidnapped by a group called the Gobblers who have been kidnapping children throughout England. This leads her to the Artic and she meets witches, armoured bears and other strange phenomena. At the heart of it all seems to be a mystery about something called 'dust'.I'd heard that this is a not so subtle attack on the Church and only one book in I can see why. They are certainly not portrayed in a great way, though they have evolved into the Magisterium in this world. To be honest none of the powerful adults come off well here, only the more 'down to earth' ones. Lyra herself is a portrayed pretty well I think, and though she can be annoying I think that's what the author was going for. The story is very well done, straight-forward enough for younger readers to follow but there's plenty of enough depth for older readers as well. The scene with Lyra and her daemon on the table was surprisingly emotional. The concepts of daemons as a kind of external soul was interesting and I am looking forward to learning more about this in the future volumes as it seems like it's going to be quite important.I really feel that this is a YA book as it ought to be done, like a good Pixar movie it's aimed for kids but has enough depth and emotion for whatever age you are. Looking forward to the next. 4 starsThe Subtle Knife:I struggled with this one a bit. It definitely suffers from middle book syndrome. Unlike the first which was pretty much all Lyra's POV we have a major new POV here, that of Will, a boy from our world. We also have some POV's from Lee Scoresby and Serafina the witch. Will accidentally finds a portal into a another world, a world where adults are hunted by specters which basically suck the soul out of them (I wonder where JK Rowling got her dementors idea from!!??) but kids can't see them and are not affected. It means that there are groups of kids running riot under no supervision and it's here that he meets Lyra and together they set out to find Will's dad who went missing when he was a baby.Honestly it feels like nothing much happened in this book. There are events of course but it basically seems to be a set up for the final book. There were parts I enjoyed. I liked the tie between Dust and Dark Matter, and the parts in our world with the physicist were very interesting. Lee Scoresby's chapters were good with the end very good. The problem is I was bored for decent chunks of it. It wasn't bad, hence the 3 stars, but it was just ok. Maybe reading it as an adult is a problem but I did enjoy the first one so it can't be just that. Anyway I will move on to the third as hopefully the set up of this will have the pay off in the next one. Here's hoping anyway. 3 starsThe Amber Spyglass:This was just a mess. The story begins straight after the last one but takes the problems I had from the second book and dials them up. Characters go places for no real reason except for 'plot'. Honestly what was the whole point of going to the land of the dead? And the reason for such came from nowhere and was never explained. I was bored for most of it. Even the exciting bits were fairly blah and made not much sense either.Mrs Coulter was the strangest. She went from the genuinely scary character in the first book to being besotted about Lyra and changing her whole viewpoint. Now this could be good and interesting but it felt unearned and jarring. Lyra and Will weren't bad, and some of their emotional moments were quite good but were let down by the meandering plot. I actually quite liked Mary's story but again it didn't really do anything except give us a bit more detail about Dust but it took up like a quarter of the book.And the end. Oh my god the end. Still makes no sense to me. I'm not quite sure what the author was on about. The whole series got more like a sledgehammer to the head in relation to his feelings about organised religion but I have no idea what he was trying to say with the end. So two thirteen(?) year olds have sex and then the universe is suddenly put right again? Did I read that part correct? I don't know, that was pretty messed up when you think on it. Maybe if I'd read this when I was young I would be seeing this series very differently but I thought it got worse as it continued. Don't get me wrong, there were some great moments here but they were lost in a stew of a plot. Not sure now if I'll bother with the new series. 2 stars

Review for edition by Everyman’s Library ISBN-13: 978-1841593425. A red cloth bound hardback with a golden ribbon marker. Paper smooth, creamy coloured, medium (to thin) thickness. Was afraid from reading another review that the paper was thin and font small, but I am not disappointed in either regard. The medium font is suitable for the nine year old this was purchased for. Please see images.