Northern Lights

What Northern Lights is about

Lyra Belacqua is twelve and lives half-wild among the scholars of Jordan College, Oxford, with her dæmon Pantalaimon, the animal form of her soul. When her friend Roger vanishes, taken by child-snatchers called the Gobblers, she is pulled into a hunt that reaches far beyond her college walls. Her uncle Lord Asriel has glimpsed something strange in the Northern Lights, and the charming Mrs Coulter runs a board with secret and disturbing aims.

Lyra is given an alethiometer, a device that tells the truth, and finds she can read it by instinct. With the Gyptians she travels north, where she meets an armoured bear named Iorek Byrnison and the aeronaut Lee Scoresby. Pullman's young-adult fantasy, the first of His Dark Materials, is an epic, dark adventure about friendship, loyalty and the price of growing up, for readers who like their fantasy with real moral weight.

Questions about Northern Lights

When was Northern Lights published?

Northern Lights by Philip Pullman was first published in 1995.

Was Northern Lights one of the best books of 1995?

Northern Lights is #3 on BookWard's Best Books of 1995, out of 28 1995 books that cleared our data bar. 1,165 readers have shelved it on Open Library; readers rate it 3.9 out of 5 (228 ratings); 43 are reading it right now.

Why is Northern Lights on the Best Books of 1995 list?

1,165 readers have shelved it on Open Library; readers rate it 3.9 out of 5 (228 ratings); 43 are reading it right now.

More of the best books of 1995

• The Lost World Michael Crichton, #1
• Emotional Intelligence Daniel Goleman, #2
• Mindhunter John E. Douglas, #4
• Rose Madder Stephen King, #5
• Wicked Gregory Maguire, #6
• The Demon-Haunted World Carl Sagan, #7

See the full Best Books of 1995, the Top 100, or new books on Rising.