Elements of His Dark Materials

If Philip Pullman refers to this book, how can you go wrong? It is totally encyclopedic. A dense reference book that covers everything that you have remembered or may have forgotten. I keep referring to this tome though I am not currently re-reading the trilogy. The drawings, the cultural references (in the real world), the UK and US differences, this is a mind boggling work. I cannot imagine the effort put into this book. Laurie Frost has seemed, to me, to have exceeded all human limitations in documenting this masterwork.

There's no better recommendation for a reference book than when the author of the original series states that he's using it to help him remember his own books. And this reference has just such a recommendation. This is an awesome source, part concordance, part encyclopedia, part character guide. It's a great companion and helped me innumerable times when I was looking for an elusive quote. I also enjoyed seeing the differences between the US and UK versions of the books laid out. The information is presented in a concise and entertaining way, and it's as easy to simply flip open a page and read a bit for fun as it is to look up a specific character or concept. Frost's attention to detail makes this a book that I will always be glad to own. (Plus, the cover is a shiny picture of the Northern Lights, which just makes it that much more attractive.)