Non-Experimental Book Recommendation: Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials Trilogy

I want to recommend you read the His Dark Materials trilogy, the first book of which is the Golden Compass, the inspiration for the recent movie.

First of all, the movie sucks. Don't watch it. It is nothing but a mindless adventure story that will rot your brain. The books, on the other hand, will carry on an amazing level of conversation with you. It is written at the 5th or 6th grade reading level, so the mechanics of the writing (vocabulary, sentence structures, et cetera) won't be that difficult for you. Why is a prospective teacher recommending you read it? Because of that level of conversation I mentioned.

The book not only discusses a large number of themes -- centering around coming of age and various religious/spiritual/philosophical topics -- but actually converses with you about them. What do I mean by that? I mean to say that, as opposed to the vast majority of what posses for literature nowadays (and even what passes for canonical literature, that is, the "big name" literature you've no doubt been forced to read and re-read by this point), the book's exploration of these themes occurs at a pace and in such a manner as to respond to the your personal exploration of these themes.What are these themes? As I said, they center around coming of age, including the discovery of sexuality, even in the bowdlerized (or cleansed and sanitized; the "radio version") American version, and a whole host of themes concerning religion and the soul. These latter themes include the nature of religious hierarchy (that is, whether the church as an organization is good or bad for people), what it means to have a soul, what it means to BE a soul (who talks about that?!), fate and destiny, and cosmology (or the metaphysical structure of the universe). Interestingly, both of these major themes combine in the ongoing character conflict revolving around the development of morals. In fact, this last theme serves as the hinge around which all of the other themes turn, and is essential to, quite literally, all of the other themes. Oh, and, in the meantime, he connects and explores questions of quantum physics and historical narrative, the latter bypresenting numerous alternate histories which draw you in with their elaborateness and strangeness. Fair warning, though, the alternate history of the first book is filled with slightly-different terms for things and will thus be your only possible vocabulary problem in this book.

This is not to claim the books are boring. Philip Pullman manages, throughout all of this, to weave a thrilling tale filled with high adventure, conflict, battle, epic hubris, and, of course, blood. Philip Pullman is an atheist, and that informs much of his discussion, but because he still accepts the validity of various spiritual concepts -- and because of the afore-mentioned conversational nature of his thematic exploration -- the books don't try to convince you that his way is THE way. Rather, they let you figure out the truth for yourself.

I hope that I have inspired you to at least read these books. Thank you very much for taking the time to read this.