I love the His Dark Materials trilogy and I'm interested in reading an analysis of it. However, this book was obviously the wrong choice. I was first turned off by the author's assertion that "we tend to take for granted that our religions are good; that those who fight religion may not be so good", which I take issue with on several levels. Secondly, I was annoyed by the author's repetition of and refusal to challenge or even really discuss Pullman's insistance that His Dark Materials is not fantasy but "stark realism", which Pullman apparently defines as "telling a story about a realistic subject (...) using the mechanism of fantasy". This is patently ridiculous, as all good fantasy novels do the same thing; calling it realism when there are witches and talking bears is wishful thinking. Gresh finally lost me entirely when I tired of the false modesty peppered throughout the text. I like accessible writing, but including things like "(and I, a mere writer)" and openly admitting to not understanding portions of the novels is not the way to engage a reader. ( )