His Dark Materials — powerful imagery, but read it for the gripping story: Phillip Pullman’s epic fantasy trilogy (Northern Lights, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass) might be marketed towards young adults, but they are loved by readers of all ages. The reader is immediately drawn into a carefully-crafted, vibrant world of parallel universes, armored bears, witches, and mysterious, charged, elementary particles. We follow friends Lyra and Will as they move between worlds — some very much like our own, others very different to it — in a bid to escape a host of malevolent characters belonging to the powerful and unyielding Magisterium, a rigid organization driven to rid the world of original sin. A partial reworking of John Milton’s Paradise Lost, the narrative arc encompasses complex ideas related to physics, philosophy, theology and morality, but though the books raise powerful questions, they are also just brilliant stories.